September 27, 2022 – In 2021, the Whitaker Peace & Development Initiative (WPDI) and UNESCO entered into a partnership to roll out a program in Gabon, Cameroon and Chad. The project, entitled “Young people, Weavers of Peace”, aims to create a network of 1,800 young leaders for peace and development in the cross-border regions of the three countries. These fragile regions suffer from various conflicts and illicit trafficking, which are themselves rooted in entrenched forms of poverty and violence, as well as a lack of socioeconomic opportunities. In this context, many young people, a group particularly affected by unemployment and marginalization, will find a desperate escape from their situations by engaging in illicit and dangerous activities, jeopardizing the present and the future both for themselves and their communities.
In face of these inextricably local and cross-border challenges, UNESCO engaged in a partnership with WPDI as well as UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime) and the UN Peacebuilding Fund to train 1,800 youths from these underprivileged communities. Drawing inspiration from the work of WPDI, UNESCO enrolled these youths to promote the fact that young people from fragile areas should be empowered as potential agents of change likely to contribute to the consolidation of peace and development.
750 youths were specifically enrolled on a program for social entrepreneurship led and implemented by WPDI, espousing its tried and tested Business Bootcamp program. In the first phase, participants are taken through a series of training sessions on entrepreneurship skills and cooperative businesses, after which, moving into the second phase, they have the opportunity to submit projects for cooperative enterprises to WPDI through Business Plan Competitions. These competitive processes allow WPDI and its partners to select promising projects for subsequent support, with WPDI providing monitoring and backstopping to the entrepreneurs to ensure that their businesses develop in optimal conditions. Based on this model, the 750 youths are to be trained at various locations in the cross-border regions and 16 groups of 10 youths will eventually be supported to create 16 cooperative businesses across Cameroon, Chad and Gabon.
So far, 242 youths have been trained across 5 areas, 52% of them women. The first training sessions took place from May to July 2022, with 1 week in Kyé-Ossi in the south of Cameroon and 4 weeks in Pala, Binder, Gounou-Gaya and Fianga in the south of Chad, with more sessions planned this year. Each training session lasts for six days, allowing for intensive learning, including through interactive sessions for deepening the understanding of the concepts and tools proposed.
Participants were delighted with the opportunity and highlighted the detail that goes into the planning of the sessions. One participant at the course in Gounou-Gaya, Chad, underlined: “It was very complete and educational. The workbook was a tool that allowed me to understand the concepts that were very difficult at the beginning of the training very quickly. Moreover, the creativity games are very interesting when you want to see things differently.”
There are few opportunities for such business training in these volatile regions, and participants were delighted to have the chance to learn new skills that will hopefully help them build a brighter future for themselves and their communities. “This training program in social entrepreneurship set up by WPDI has enabled me to benefit from tools and strategies that will allow me to set up my social project in collaboration with other young people in my locality of Pala. I have learned a lot so I am now equipped to set up our social project of agricultural production,” exclaimed one participant from Pala, Chad.
Furthermore, Business Plan Competitions are planned for the future, and we are looking forward to accompanying the 160 winners in the creation of their cooperatives.The success of the training program in these regions suffering from violence is an undeniable indication of the extent to which such interventions are needed in these areas. This should assuredly motivate WPDI and its partners to further their efforts at promoting entrepreneurship in the cross-border regions of Cameroon, Chad and Gabon.
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