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| CEO LUKMEF Addressing the Press |
At a time when the entire
humanitarian corps put together can only respond to 20% of the entire
humanitarian needs of the war affected populations of the North West and South
West regions of the Republic of Cameroon, the need to build the capacity of humanitarian
actors in emergency humanitarian interventions has become primordial.
Aid has often reached the wrong
people in the ongoing humanitarian aid distribution in the North West and
sometimes the intervention is poorly done. It is on this backdrop that Martin
Luther King Junior Memorial Foundation a Cameroon born NGO that now operates
internationally with branches in Ghana, Switzerland, Kenya and soon to go
operational branches in Nigeria and other countries around the world brought
together 100 religious men and women from all the popular faiths in Cameroon
including Muslims to build their capacity in humanitarian intervention and
coordination
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| Cross section of participants |
In a two days workshop sponsored by
UNICEF through LUKMEF, participants were drilled on the core humanitarian principles
of humanity, impartiality, independence and neutrality with
a special input of the principle of Do no harm as well as the core humanitarian
standards (CHS) that describes the essential elements of principled,
accountable and high-quality humanitarian
action. Other areas of particular impact were child protection respond
services, Gender based violence, and UNICEF specific intervention. Participants
were made to understand the notion of GBV, and to know the available responds
services for GBV as well as for child protection respond services and the child
protection referral pathway for the North West.
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| Participants working in groups |
There was
also a focus on the safe guarding of Unaccompanied and Separated Children
(UASC) in times of crisis like in the North West region where many children
have lost their parents and homes to the ongoing war. The presenter of the module Mr. Tanyi
Christian stressed that such children must first of all be treated as humans
before being given help and that communities or individuals hosting such children
must take absolute care of them as they are usually at the most vulnerable
stages of their lives which can lead to extreme radicalization or depression if
they are not well handled.
To Mr.
Tanyi Christian, CEO of LUKMEF, the choice of religious leaders for the
training is justified by the fact that they are usually the last persons to
leave a war zone. “In a community that is broken or highly affected to the
extremes, it is very likely that the one man you will still find there will be
the religious persons. LUKMEF cannot do it all alone, therefore the need to
properly integrate them into the humanitarian response process. In terms of
access, they need to be the ones to tell us what their communities need and how
we can get that aid to them and if we talk about accountability to affected
population, it means they are supposed to be at the center of the response.
Within the frame work of UNICEF’s intervention in the two regions, they have
recognized the key role that religious bodies can play in humanitarian
intervention such that it has moved beyond UNICEF to other humanitarian
agencies embracing the approach”.
According
to Pastor Innocent, the neutrality and non political leanings of religious
leaders sometimes make them free minded and have nothing pushing them away. “It
is for this reason that we think we can capitalize on our presence and efforts
towards assisting the needy to build our capacities so that we can better
deliver. We also believe that if we work as an inter faith based movement, we
can have substantial aid from humanitarian agencies to better help our
communities.”
Community
humanitarian assistance in the North West especially in the far off divisions
away from Mezam remain a big challenge.
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