We believe that; Educational systems should guide the young to accept the importance of human rights and teach them to solve conflicts and stand up for their values in a non-violent manner. We envisage relationships based on mutual respect in which all citizens enjoy human rights.
We address youth engagement issues in Human rights development through civic education, advocacy, democratic values, social justice, and fundamental freedom.
We run a 9 Months project that engages youths in protection monitoring, reporting, referrer, and mainstreaming while ensuring meaningful inclusion, enhancing participation, and engaging them to take ownership in assisting the humanitarian drive in implementing humanitarian needs and reporting incidents in the Southwest. We do this at community levels, creating awareness through civic education to understand their constitutional rights and obligations and become more responsible. The project will help build the capacity of youth leaders to organize outreach activities. The youth leaders will then serve as agents4change in mobilizing and supporting their communities to address specific issues on protection, human rights, and social justice in rebuilding governance institutions and promoting peace in the Southwest and northwest region of Cameroon. The project will make a difference in the quality of lives of approximately 2000 youth leaders living in conflict areas in the following way: 1) will engage in strategic partnerships to address ethnicity, illegal arrest, and social values amongst youths. 2) Contribute to addressing, monitor, and report issues of human rights abuse and violation. 3) Improve youth’s capacity to understand protection issues and the opportunity to respond.
Finally, the project will focus on creating bridges of collaboration with youth synergies and media. As part of the Joint Action Plan for Media Support (JAPMS), one of the axes “communications for behavior change. Through T.V./Radio programs, SMS Platforms, online newspapers, mop clips, posters, flyers on protection and awareness education, over 10,000 Cameroonians will reach information and messages relevant to protection.
Clean drinking water and good hygiene are proven to significantly improve entire communities’ health, increase school attendance, and empower families to lift themselves out of poverty.
We ensure that most vulnerable young people have access to basic hygiene: Clean clothes, dignity kits, and water access.
Clean Water through Solar Disinfection Solar Disinfection – otherwise known as SODIS – is a simple and sustainable water purification technique that harnesses the sun’s U.V. rays. By filling up a plastic bottle with dirty water and leaving it in direct sunlight for a day (or under cloudy skies for two days), the SODIS method destroys 99.9% of bacteria and pathogens. Simply put, SODIS turns contaminated water into clean drinking water. Because SODIS is the cornerstone of our program, we have improved accessibility to clean water for thousands of people without drilling any new water wells in Africa or building complicated infrastructure.
Are we concerned about plastic bottles? So, are we? We reuse and recycle as much as possible. Learn more about our SODIS sustainability practices. “We used to drink water straight from a swamp down the way – it was our only option. Our whole family was sick with typhoid, which is expensive to treat. We met the WaterSchool team through our parish and learned how to purify our water using the sun. Because of SODIS, we no longer must drink contaminated water. Our lives have changed so much – it is hard to believe!
Built next to family homes, Rainwater Collection Tanks harness the power of Cameroon’s rainy season by collecting up to 6,000 liters of clean, safe water. A simple gutter takes rainwater from the roof directly into the tank. These tanks especially allow for easy cleaning and to prevent mosquitoes from breeding in them. The taps are locked to avoid wastage or theft of valuable water. Tanks serve 1-5 families who, with clean drinking water at their doorsteps, are less likely to contract waterborne illnesses and have more time to invest in their children, focus on business, attend school, and more.
WaterSchool champions learn to build latrines at home and effectively clean up waste in and around their homes and schools. They also create Tippy Taps: handwashing stations built from plastic jerry can and sticks. This simple infrastructure is essential to the successful implementation of healthy sanitation practices. We have seen that providing communities with sanitation practices can increase school attendance by over 23% because kids are not out sick or walking for water.
We go back to the basics and provide training in handwashing, clean food before consumption, and more. When people have access to clean water and are staying healthy because of their hygiene practices, they have more time and money to invest in small businesses, farming, and other activities that drive their economies forward.
We work with communities to create garbage and compost pits and help build and promote latrines with doors for privacy and a squat hole cover to prevent flies from exiting and contaminating food. This kind of contamination can also be easily controlled using a latrine with a tight-fitting lid – like a Sato Pan.
We train families on how to build and maintain energy-efficient cooking stoves in their homes. These stoves replace open fires that would burn in the middle of a small hut. Highly efficient cooking stoves help girls’ and women’s health by drastically improving indoor air quality in the kitchen by venting the smoke outside the house. They are more environmentally sensitive as they burn about 80% less wood than a traditional open cooking fire.
By constructing a private room or outbuilding at school with pads, clean underwear, a spare school uniform, and basic painkillers, WaterSchool has found a way to keep more girls in school. Adolescent girls can relieve themselves safely and manage their menstrual cycle privately while at school when they are less likely to drop out. We have seen that girls in the communities we work with miss 24% of their school days because they do not feel safe coming to school while they have their period. With a few basic supplies and easy access to a safe space, girls feel more comfortable and welcome at school as they grow up.
We conduct distribution of Non-Food Items (NFIs) for most vulnerable youth and population affected by crisis and disaster: These include clothes, shoes, essential household items, touch lights, Sleeping and shelter kits, and small but portable construction materials.
There is nothing worse than losing your identity. People displaced in the wake of a disaster can only feel worse. The impact of relief agencies in supplying products in such situations becomes significant.
The provision of material assistance to refugees, IDPs, and persons of concern is fundamental to UNHCR’s mandate. The organization continuously works to develop and improve the products provided to populations of concern and ensure that assistance is effective and timely. Product development and innovation are an essential element of UNHCR’s work in close partnership with other U.N. agencies, international organizations, such as the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the International Movement of the Red Cross, and Red Crescent, Non-Governmental Organizations, as well as the private sector. New or improved products have resulted from this close cooperation.
These include the most widely used relief items: The Plastic Tarpaulin Sheet, UNHCR developed with MSF in the 1980s; the Semi-Collapsible Jerry Can, developed by UNHCR during the “Rwanda emergency” in 1995; the Lightweight Emergency Tent developed in 2005 by UNHCR in cooperation with IFRC and MSF. In 2009, the collaboration between the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), UNHCR, and the private sector resulted in the Family Tent made of lightweight materials that are resistant and able to withstand severe weather conditions.
The connection to family and friends developed while our youths are still inside, building confidence and hope, which leads to reunification and love. This rebuilding of family relationships helps our youth transition back to the community once they are released. We encourage our young men to be back in the lives of their children as soon as possible after release. We also serve their children through a significant children’s Christmas outreach project sponsored by a local church. We have a family reunification weekend every summer hosted by