Youth Development Africa

The Youth need your help friends, family and supporters!

I am a Graduate from the University of Bedfordshire with a degree in BA Hon Sport Management currently looking forward to my postgraduate /masters in Applied Anthropology and Community and Youth Work in Goldsmiths university of London.

In 2012, during the second year of my degree I visited the country Cameroon located in the west of Africa to do an Easter charity give away, providing food stuff to a local community in Kumba where I had a fantastic time meeting and interacting the youth.

Having a huge interest in charity work, I believe supporting and educating the youth is the foundation of every nation. Cameroon being a country with high rate of corruption the youth are the one who suffer from the negative outcome from the government corruption. That’s why today we have thousands of young people risking their lives just to escape from the country hoping for a better live in Europe.

The lack of development opportunities in the country for young people, graduate, etc, is getting worst every year and if nothing is done to tackle this issue, we will see more and more young people dying and risking their lives for a better life in European.

I believe we all know the reasons why these young people risk their lives but if not below are some of the reasons:

• To provide for their families
• To make use of their qualifications
• Looking for an opportunity
• To belong in a society that cares about them
• More options in life
• Safety

I believe with a great supporting network in poor communities in Cameroon we will see a change in the future. The will be less people travelling out of the country to seek better life elsewhere. Having a supporting network that creates and give the people opportunities, working closely with the communities, supporting and bringing the people together for development purpose, will tackles a lot of the issues Cameroon and other African countries face today.

Today’s plan is to tackle the future crisis

The aim is to provide a platform where young boys and girls can be provided with opportunities to develop new and effective life skills. The chance to take part in project that engages their young minds and occupies their time with productive activities such as Sports, Music, Media, etc.

Through working with the community leaders and schools, I have developed a partnership which will provide great opportunities for young people to experience a positive social life. This partnership is structured towards a platform were the community can work together for a better future.

The use of graduates will provide the children with a sense of obtainability – seeing young men and women that have possibly been through the same obstacles as them and have made it through to the ‘other side’ will let each young child see that they can do it too – they can make something great of themselves if they work hard towards it.

PROJECTS

The projects we provide aim to improve the social lives of young people and development of the community. The aim is to provide services which are needed to provide experience and skills for young people in our community.

• Sport Project (Football and Boxing Focus)

The sport project provides the opportunity for sports graduates to gain employment / work experience in their field of study. We aim to provide them with all the right equipment needed to run their own clubs and get involved in competitions hosted by our organisation.

For the youth, this project will provide a platform where thousands of young boys and girls will have the chances to take part in competitive sport and socialise in a positive environment.

• Music Project (The Flow)

The flow is a project that will have an open door for youth to come and take part in music. Opportunity for graduates from music degrees to have a place where they can put into practice their experience.

It will be an open house for both boys and girls to get involved in music from learning the basics of keyboard playing to working closely with music producers to perfect their skills.

• Education (The Future)

As much as we aim to support families and young people to stay in education, we also aim to support young people who are willing to learn skilled trades to be self-employed in the future.

The future is a project aimed towards helping young people to improve in school both primary and secondary and to improve in key subjects such as Maths, English and French.

We provide the opportunity for graduate teachers to run after schools classes for young people through our support. We aim to provide all the equipment needed for this classes to run smoothly.

• Media Project (Blur Vision)

The media project provides the option for young people with interest in films and production to gain experience in the creative industry. The plan is to start by introducing them to the basics by working with graduates and professionals.

For the graduate this is a perfect opportunity to gain work experience and for the youth is a great chance to look at other options in life in terms of career path.

This project will provide the opportunity for future self-employed choose from the skills gain in the programme.

The Impact

Drugs, alcohol, violence, young pregnancy are big issues in Africa today. With these programs active young people will be kept busy and can escape from being victims of the following. Taking part in any of the programs will guarantee the young people with someone to talk to and get advice from.

The positive impact of this is, it will allow us to engage with youth and properly educate them on issues concerning life. For example with the recent immigration crisis, we’d like to help curb this by letting kids know that they can make where they currently are a better place – the common preconceptions currently indicate that Europe is ‘better’ and holds more opportunity for their future.

Modern slavery is another issue that young Africans face. The programs we are running would help us keep a record of all the young people we are working with. This could help us to monitor cases of non-attendance and prompt us to contact the child’s family to find out why they have not attended.

This will play a part in reducing the number of migrant Europe have to deal with in the future and it will also help to stop some of the traffickers from people people’s lives at risk.

The aim is to begin making headway in this project from April 2016.