Inclusive Development: Bamenda III Council pushes agenda through holiday jobs, football, scholarships

By Bakah Derick 

The Bamenda III Council has been using the 2022 long holiday to push across her inclusive development agenda to the population of the municipality. According to Mayor Fongu Cletus Tanwe, the football competition, holiday jobs for students and the inclusive education scholarship scheme are all efforts by his Council to take the population along in its inclusive development processes. 

Lohshie Eugene of the SEEPD program addressing holiday makers at the Bamenda III Council on Disability and Inclusion.

"As a Council we have made a commitment to enhance inclusion in our municipality. It will be sustainable, faster and easy if everyone is involved. That is why we are engaging the young people through the holiday jobs, football competition and scholarships. Those to sponsor the scholarship are elderly people and in that way they will also be committing to promoting inclusive development especially of the mind in our municipality. Mayor Fongu Cletus tells www.hilltopvoices.com 

The football competition 

Launched on Sunday 24 August 2022, the Bamenda III Council Inclusive Royal Tournament has been used for the education of the public on the need to be inclusive especially at individual level. With a public address system regularly present on match days, spectators and players are encouraged to ensure that private and public structures concerning them are accessible to persons living with disabilities and much more. 

Partial view of stadium during the Bamenda III Council Inclusive Royal Tournament semi final 

"We had to name the competition as the Bamenda III Council Inclusive Royal Tournament as a way of emphasising our position on matters of inclusion to those playing and spectators. Away from that, we are going to effectively involve people with disabilities at some point to carry out their own sporting activities taking into consideration their numbers." The Mayor said 

12 teams are taking part in the football tournament that is expected to end on Sunday 28 August 2022. 

Student Holiday jobs 

Over 200 students between the ages of 15 and 25 selected from across the municipality are taking part in the 2022 holiday jobs session regularly organised by the council. Upon arrival every morning, the young people are deployed to perform different tasks across the municipality. On Thursday 18 August 2022, the young people had a session with Lohshie Eugene Velon heading a team from the Socio-Economic Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (SEEPD) program of the Cameroon Baptist Convention (CBC) Health services on Inclusion and Disability. Council sources say, for the inclusion agenda to be sustainable in the municipality, the induction of young people is vital.

Hilltopvoices has gathered that not fewer than five participants in the holiday jobs activity are persons with disabilities (hearing, visually, mobility and albinism.) 

The Disability Focal point person at the council has explained that the councils is using this activity to build a healthy environment amongst youngsters from the communities, strengthening their knowledge on career orientation, mental health education as well as sexual and menstrual hygiene management. “We are happy that the CBCHS and its partner Australian Aid, are supporting us to do all of these in an inclusive way…” Atanga Marina noted.

The Bamenda III Council Inclusive education Scholarship

The Council has also confirmed the launching of a scholarship scheme targeting people living with disabilities in the municipality. With a constant increase in the number of children with disabilities in the municipality and eventual neglect by caregivers, the scholarship scheme according to the Council aims at assisting children with disabilities access school needs such as tuition fee, learning support material, provision of assistive devices like brail machines and papers, crushes, wheelchairs, whitecanes and much more. 

The Council also intends to improve physical access to school structures such as classrooms, toilet and schools taps through the construction of access ramps and reasonable accommodation for learners with disabilities within the school. 

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