Kids pose for family pictures with members of Royalty World
By Njodzeka Danhatu
Some over 50 kids, including the vulnerable and needy, have been engaged on the importance of promoting peace and protecting the environment.
This was in Mile 16, Buea, on Tuesday, April 15, during an event known as “Peace Ambassadors: Envisioning Vulnerable Kids Through Arts and Environmental Education”.
The event was organised by MINYAO, an international solidarity association dedicated to the well-being of the most deprived and vulnerable children in Africa.
According to the organiser, the gathering provided a platform for vulnerable kids to express themselves, learn, and have fun while promoting peace, sharing, art, and environmental protection.
MINYAO organised the event owing the ordeals children and vulnerable kids have encountered as a result of the ongoing armed conflict in English Cameroon.
To them, since the onset of the crisis rocking Cameroon’s Northwest and Southwest regions, they have watched children go through a lot.
Hundreds of thousands of children has lost education, some watched their parent die while others have suffered some from gunshot.
This is very traumatising, the organiser believed.
That is why they decided to bring these kids together to enlighten their mood with fun and relieving activities geared at promoting peace.
“This particular event is very significant for us because it brings the kids to a place where they themselves can start thinking about peace.” Doris Ngum, Executive Director of Royalty World, the NGO on the ground that implemented the project said “They can start understanding the necessity of peace. When I asked them the definition of peace, one of them told me that peace is harmony with the environment and with themselves, and that is what we really want to achieve,” she said.
To her, the program was to help the young people to have fun but in the place of having fun for them to also learn lessons and become the ambassadors of peace.
“Not just that but also the ambassadors of the environment,” she added.
During the session, kids aged 4 to 13 demonstrated the understanding of what peace is and ways to safeguard the environment.
Chiara Amembo, 12, is a Form 2 student who took part in the event. She said she learnt about the importance of peace and how to make the society a peaceful one.
“While learning things about peace, we have also learnt literature, types of storytelling. Those are the ways we can tell people about peace or make a peaceful society.” Chaira said. For her, peace is the absence of war, where there is harmony, love and sharing.
The same message was also echoed by Emmanuel Simon Okon, a class six pupil who said he has learnt how to maintain peace and protect the environment.
The activities like arts and music selected to pass information to the children, according to Doris Ngum, bring out the authenticity in the young people.
“Watching them go through these exercises, coming out and having fun is trauma healing. It is helping them also see there can be a space for them to have fun and be themselves without the gunshots and also to help them see that it is possible to have a peaceful community,” Royalty World Executive Director said.
The program is part of the MINYAO association, through its “Recycling for Earth” and “Give Back“. Sensitising the kids has once again fulfilled its humanitarian mission to orphans and needy children.
Founded in 2024 by Mrs. NGO YETNA Clodine and, among others, Mr. Nyemb Jacques Jonathan, MINYAO, which means “kindness” in the BASSA language of Cameroon, is an international solidarity association dedicated to the well-being of the most deprived and vulnerable children in Africa, and more particularly in Cameroon. MINYAO is based in DOUALA (Cameroon) and has a representation in France.