Youth Peacebuilders Training
The problem
For seven years there has been a civil war in the English-speaking part of Cameroon. Youths vulnerability and involvement in this armed violence are leading to deaths, trauma, displacements, destruction of property, and horrendous abuses of human rights. The UNDP Service Center in Africa reported in 2022 that Africa’s youthful population, approximately 60 percent of the total, is exposed to recruitment efforts by extremist groups. In the ongoing armed conflict in the north-west and south-west regions of Cameroon, several thousands of youth are already bearing arms. If nothing is done, many more youths are likely to join in this violence.
Solution
This program takes idle youth out of the violence into a 9 month residential setting in a peaceful environment where they recalibrate, build resilience, develop vital peacebuilding and livelihood skills, and then re-inter their communities as veritable agents of sustainable peace and development.
We aim for 50 trainees per year and hope to release 250 trained and skilled peacebuilders within the next 5 years who will function as ambassadors for a non-violent and thriving Cameroon Please contribute.