„Je m’engage!“ – Project Update

Since the first presentation of our project a few weeks ago we continously worked on bringing our idea to life and advanced step by step in its planning and elaboration - which is why we want to give you the latest update:

We finished our visits at the Women-Organizations in and around the city of Douala; we had some really interesting discussions and learned a lot about the living conditions and problems that women are facing every day. No matter with whom we spoke, our first impression that the worlwide discrimination of women is a serious problem as well in the cameroonian society has been approved – but we also learned that there are many women who stand up against this and fight for equal rights. Besides this rather personal and individual perception, the impact of discrimination is strongly approved when looking at the percentage of women in official institutions: Out of 62 members of the government only nine are women, of all the traditional leaders („chef du village“), which have a strong moral and spiritual influence especially on the country side, only one is a woman. Reaching top-decision-making positions in the private and public sector is almost impossible. Many women we spoke with also decribed the difficulties they have in gaining independence from their families and the the strong male hierachie which contiunes to debar women from making their own decisions. Being deprived of real political participation and social and financial autonomy, for many women mariage seems to be the best option – which obviously is not a strategy that offers a perspective to get away from male dominance.

These impressions in mind, we felt even more motivated to advance in the elaboration of our project, supported and encouraged by the women we talked to. In the last few weeks, our main occupation was to find the financial means needed to implement our idea. This is not an easy task, everyone who did fundraising once knows what we are talking about – writing lots of emails and letters presenting the goals and impact of the project.. all this is an important but not always easy thing to do. But we stay positive and will continue to search for sponsors!

We visited "Les dames Sauveters" in Njombé, a village close to Douala. The organisation exists since 1991and has around 80 members.

After a really intresting afternoon with the organisation AME "Association des mères et enfants" some of their members showed us their neighbourhood.

« Je vote, donc j’existe !!! » Campaign to mobilize citizens to claim their right to vote

Projet: Education au Droit Electoral et Accompagnement des Citoyens dans les Processus Electoraux au Cameroun (EDE/ACPE).

Project: Education for the Right to vote and the support of citizens in the electoral process in Cameroon.

Although Cameroon’s party system experienced quite a flourish in 1990 when the multi-party system was reinstalled and many new parties were founded, the political elite surrounding President Paul Biya remained lethargic. While there actually is a wide spectrum of political parties, most of them are only active regionally, suffer from unstable membership and lack financial and organizational resources. The governing RDPC (Rassemblement Démocratique du Peuple Camerounais), which arose from the single political party that ruled the country for 30 years, is still the one of the few parties having sufficient financial resources and the power to mobilize their electors. Its predominance is undermining the pluralism and inhibits an actual change in the party system. Being governed by the same President now for 30 years leaves many citizens indifferent towards politics and unwilling to participate in the political process. The necessity to empower the civil society to legitimate political leadership is one of the big challenges for NGOs like 1MA.

In January 2011 Un Monde Avenir started the project EDE/ACPE to actively promote and support citizens to participate in the electoral process of the following 12^th presidential elections in October 2011. While official statistics present the voting participation at a level of 65%, the independent election observers claim it to be only at 40%.

But the EDE/ACPE project wasn’t finished with the presidential election as 1MA continued to promote the participations of citizens and their right to vote on a national and local level since then. To motivate more people to cast their ballot, the initiative is focused on three main goals: The formation of the election observers, accompanying the citizens at the electoral process and the scrutiny at the election day. In the last months 1MA organized meetings in the ten regions of Cameroon and educated all together 700 Volunteers to observe the electoral process and accompany the population to the inscription process of the following local and parliamentary elections that started yesterday (02/10/2012). But, facing financial shortcomings as the UNDEF (The United Nations Democracy Fund) is only supporting the project until the end of 2012, there will be no remaining capacities to actually execute the scrutiny of the 2013 elections. Hence, it is even more important to actively support the inscription process and mobilize as many electors as possible until the end of the year.

For more information on Cameroon’s party system, its changes and functioning, feel invited to look for the reports on this topic published by Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung named „Parteien und Parteiensysteme in Afrika” (available in german via www).

Chief of Project during inscription

Citizens waiting for inscription

„MasterPeace” Project-Reunion 21/09/2012 – Promote peace locally!

Facing the multiple conflicts all around the world, celebrating the international day of peace seems to be an idealistic, perhaps even naïve project. How can we seriously celebrate peace? In Douala, Cameroon a meeting of various youth organizations lead by Un Monde Avenir gave realistic answers: Changing the global context in which wars, exploitation and the challenge of terrorism are omnipresent, peace has to start at the local level. For the participants promoting peace starts in their communities, families, schools and between the people who are around them. Having the experience to live in an environment that is affected by different problems such as economic inequality, corruption, the young participants agreed on the importance to find solutions by actively criticizing and discussing problems in their environment. It is not possible to be at peace if the people around you are not at peace. After an interesting debate about the question where peace starts and what could be your contribution to it, a young artist (Donzy-Donz'Art) expressed his interpretation of peace in a contemporary dance. His presentation included the participants’ contribution as he started to create a painting and invited everyone to join his art. The day found an interactive ending with the reading of five pre-selected poems composed by young students. All in all, the meeting gave new creative impulses how to promote peace locally.