Promoting Living Together : More Peace Ambassadors Created

“Strengthening the role of young people in promoting bilingualism and multiculturalism and living together for the consolidation of Peace in Cameroon”. This was the theme of a two-day workshop organized by the UNESCO Peace Building Fund-PBF that took place in Souza from the 6-7 February 2024. The project is out to equip youths on the concepts of bilingualism and the promotion of multiculturalism to consolidate peace. Given that the young people have been involved in different activities to commemorate Youth Day, the young people gain skills on the activities of the Bilingualism Commission and on how they can create activities within their communities to promote multiculturalism and living together.
It is on record that the prolonged security crisis in the North West and South West regions is leading to significant population displacements. Thousands of Cameroonians fleeing the violence of these crises are thus forced to migrate to other regions that are new to them, and to share living space, resources, and available services with the populations found there. The Littoral and West regions host thousands of this group of people, thus cohabitation between the displaced population and populations of host communities becomes a potential cause of conflicts as they struggle to make living out of the available resources which have not increased. Moreover, the risks of conflict are exacerbated by the not-always-easy encounter of various cultures, traditions, lifestyles and even languages. With all these, the project hopes to train the youths in the host communities to be welcoming and embrace new cultures, while the displaced community also have to accept other cultures and live together while respecting the laws of the host communities.
The UNESCO-PBF chief of the project, Aubin Nzeli, said they drafted modules that touched on the specific topics and also trained the youths ...