Five Keys in Five Villages

Location: Cameroon 

The African Youth Alliance is a 100% female and youth-led, volunteer-run organization. Their aim is to support women/girls in remote rural communities of northwest Cameroon who make up more than half of the population but yet are faced with a lot of challenges as reflected on imbalance leadership to persisting conflicts, unemployment, resource scarcity to food security which are all interconnected. 

Empowering women and girls are part of the solutions in relieving these challenges. Cameroon has 10 regions; 8 regions are Francophone while only 2 regions, northwest and southwest, are Anglophone with a minority population. The country was peaceful until late October 2016 when a secessionist movement started in the Anglophone regions asking for their independence. It led to socio-political unrest causing the displacement of people, thus leading to an emergency humanitarian situation, destruction of properties, food scarcity and limited or lack of health services provision, etc. 

The projects that emerge from this initiative will highlight the 5 pillars of Rockflower in 5 different rural communities of northwest Cameroon affected by the conflict of the past 24 months. 

Peace and Security

In respect to peace and security, 20 women leaders will be selected from groups and trained, mentored and coached to serve as positive ambassadors to mitigate the threats of violent extremism in the community through peer to peer information sharing, workshops promoting cultural diversity and conflict prevention, peace, and negotiations as such reinforcing the resilience of women/girls in a crisis community. 

Maternal and Reproductive Health

To address maternal and reproductive health through reducing taboos and increasing access to family planning, sexual and reproductive health and rights and menstrual hygiene management information will be made available for rural women and girls. With the support of a community nurse, safe discussion spaces bringing together men and traditional authorities will be created, and female peer educators will be trained. It will be the first time that men will be involved in such discussions in the village because most of them don’t like talking about family planning and sex is a taboo subject.  Many women do not know how to engage such conversations amongst themselves and with girls. The nurse and trained community peer educators will facilitate the sharing of experience on these topics to increase their knowledge and confidence on sexuality as community stakeholders on the education of girls. It will also build grounded knowledge for a change of behaviors to strengthen their contributions to gender equality and advance women and girls’ rights at the grassroots level. 

Access to Food and Water

To improve access to food and water in a remote rural community, women/girls’ groups will be trained on organic farming, water catchment protection, and tree planting to improve food security, biodiversity and forestry practices, and the protection of the water sources across the village. The women and girls will be introduced to several activities as the establishment of vegetable gardens, local tree propagators for increased crop production and crop diversity leading to improved food security as well as tree planting for the protection of the environment.

Education

Education has been grounded in the English regions due to the ongoing crisis. This has led to several teenage pregnancies and also early marriages in most rural communities. As a result, alternative education for girls in an affected crisis community will be the use of drama, arts and traditional dances as well as music to discuss girl’s leadership, early marriage, goals, and life plans through the creation of 3 safe discussions spaces in 3 quarters (the girls’ clubs). We will use arts to share information and encourage peer to peer discussions among 90 preadolescent girls on leadership. The girls will discuss the challenges they face, the implications of early marriages so as to increase their confidence and their knowledge of their rights. Community events will be organized, during which the whole community will be sensitized on the dangers of early marriages and pregnancies through a display of messages using drama, traditional cultural dances, and poems. 

Economic Empowerment

We will support economic empowerment through social entrepreneurship in a village where women and girls’ economic conditions worsened because of the sociopolitical crisis in the region. Access to some opportunities and basic necessities like soap or body lotion is limited due to the lockdown of communities for weeks when there are armed confrontations. Rural women will be able to produce powder soap, medicated body wash soap and body lotion for sale thus enabling them to have regular access to those commodities as well as new economic opportunities. It will also serve the community and other surrounding villages who are in need of those products which are now scarce. 

Holistic Model of the Five Keys

The five keys integrated on this project will help these 5 communities achieve peace and security. All the groups taking part in the project will have regular network and exchange visits to share their experiences on each pillar, strengthen their capacities and learn from each other. 

Project Partner

African Youth Alliance

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