Peace Journalist, a Community Media role model to a better society.

Community Media (CM) are any form of media that function in service of or by a community. A community in this sense can refer to a geographical area, a cultural identity or another concept linking people together. Community media represent a separate entity and are fundamentally different from public media.

Participants at workshop

The CM can take all the forms of other conventional media, such as print, radio, television, blog, Web-based and mixed media.
Community radios are particularly widespread around the world with radio stations being funded to inform their listeners on issues important to the community.

 Their services are very important in giving communities a platform to express their concerns for local issues, engage in social democratic debates and deliver a reliable access to information. This explains why the people identify more with it.

Majority of the Cameroonian population is yet to embrace the social media. Having in mind that the social media propagates mostly unverified information, the importance of the community media can not be over emphasized.

CM better known as grassroots media is focused more specifically on media making by and for the local community that it serves. It makes the discussion more narrow and precise to the understanding of the common man. It is essentially a subset focusing on small scale media projects which aim to bring different visions and perspectives to the "codes" that are so easily embedded in the social psyche.

Group picture participants NW/West.

The above explains why the Cameroon Community Media Network (CCMN), an initiative of the Communication Department of the P.C.C, brought together some 50 practitioners from the communities of the NW and West regions of Cameroon. The media men and women were schooled on Peace Journalism, social media, crisis, refugees, IDPs and Elections reporting.

The peace journalism Professor and Director of the Center for Global Peace Journalism and Crisis Reporting (Steven Youngblood), expanded on the technics and language journalist could/should use in their reports on their mediums to report during crisis and elections.

The expectations of this Bafoussam workshop which lasted for 3 days  are that, media persons put to adequate use the principles of peace journalism (good journalism) to adequately inform their masses so that they make informed choices.

                                           Ambe Macmillian A.

Sexual Violence, Sympathizers more of perpetrators.

Rape is a form of sexual assault, but not all sexual assaults is rape. The term rape is often used as a legal definition to specifically include sexual penetration without consent.

Sexual assault refers to sexual contact or behavior that occurs without explicit consent of the victim. Some forms of sexual assault include:
- Attempted rape
- Fondling or unwanted sexual touching
- Forcing a victim to perform sexual acts, such as oral sex or penetrating the perpetrator’s body
- Penetration of the victim’s body, also known as rape.

Sexual assault/rape can take many different forms, but one thing remains the same: it’s never the victim’s fault.

Most often we hear of sexual violence,  the term "sexual violence" is an all-encompassing, non-legal term that refers to crimes like sexual assault, rape and sexual abuse. A person raped like the case reported in Bamenda recently suffers the following
√. Blitz assault: this is  when a perpetrator quickly and brutally assaults the victim with no prior contact, usually at night or in a quiet place.
√. Psychological abuse (also referred to as psychological violence, emotional abuse, or mental abuse) is a form of abuse, characterized by a person subjecting, or exposing, another person to behavior that may result in psychological trauma, including anxiety, chronic depression, or post-traumatic stress disorder.

The above explains why we should protect the image of victims and rather expose perpetrators of such acts. Please desist from sharing the videos/images of the abused. Let us respect their dignity.

What to do when faced with a person who has been abused.
√. After a sexual assault,  you should help the person seek medical attention as fast as possible. This will help in checking and treating any possible injuries, STIs and pregnancy.

√. Report to Law Enforcement officers. Note that to fight it, we must speak out. But the manner or medium of speaking out matters.

√. Self-Care after trauma.
Whether it happened recently or years ago, self-care can help the abused cope with the short and long-term effects of a trauma like sexual assault.


We should join our voices to denounce all perpetrators of sexual violence.

                                       Ambe Macmillian A.

What a francophone whispered to us (Journalist) at the Bafoussam police station.

Across the globe, journalism has become very dangerous and it is time for us to use our audiences and platforms to get the world to listen and change the already bad situation.

Journalist sitting on tarmac at the police station

Nine English speaking journalists had their rights violated by the forces of law and order in Bafoussam West region of Cameroon over the weekend 12/07/18.

When faced by the security officers at about 11pm that fateful day, we presented our identification papers and our mission in the region, but we were given deaf ears.

We experienced gross human rights violations during our detention at the Bafoussam police station post 1 beside (palais de justice) central town. We were forced to sit outside in the cold on tarmac all through the night. A majority of us had just T shirts on.

As we sad in the cold wondering why we were arrested, it only donned on us that the language (English) we were  speaking could be the only call for concern in the snack we were at to have dinner and a few drinks.

To buttress this point, I remember a francophone cautioned us to stop speaking English at the police station. He insisted that the language was going to put us into more trouble.

With this in mind, one begins to wonder what crime it is to speak one of the two official languages of Cameroon in any part of the country. And if this could happen to journalists, what more of other citizens of English expression living in French speaking parts of the country?

Journalists are continuously facing challenges in the exercise of their duties and profession in Cameroon. In spite all these, some journalists still exercise professionalism in the face of such intimidation and undue torture.

According to World News Publishing Focus, they advice journalists to commit  to:

#Speaking out on the importance of the protection of our profession
#Tell the stories of the violence experienced by our colleagues across the globe
#Point out how attacks against journalists affect society at large in our coverage.
#Sighlight  governments’ obligation to ensure journalists are able to work freely and without fear of repercussion,
and continue to do so when the institutions fail to prosecute the perpetrators of the violence against our colleagues.
#Cover the causal links between violence against journalists and the impunity behind the great majority of the attacks.
#Hold governments and institutions accountable, when they fail to prosecute the perpetrators of the violence against our colleagues.
                                         
                                           Ambe Macmillian A.

*Anglophone crisis! Persons with disabilities caught in between Bullets, Hunger and Neglect.*

People with disabilities are facing added risks of abandonment, neglect, displacement, loss of property, death and unequal access to food, health care, and other assistance or reconstruction in the current conflict in the two English-speaking regions of Cameroon.

Cross section of persons with disabilities in the region. 

Governments Emergency Humanitarian Assistance  Plan and  aid from other bodies are overwhelmed with many competing priorities during this crisis. But they need to ensure that the rights and concerns of people with disabilities are addressed in aid efforts. One aspect of which is to endorse the Charter on Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities in Humanitarian Action, which includes guidelines for inclusive humanitarian response.

While many people affected by the current impasse need assistance, those with disabilities need twice as much given their exposure risks. Physical, communication and other barriers complicate the challenges created by both the Military and the Separatists.

Challenges facing thousands of persons with disabilities in the Northwest and Southwest Regions of Cameroon continue to go unnoticed. It should also be noted, that coupled with this, women and girls with disabilities face extra risk of sexual violence.

In a one on one interview with THE STATESMAN, the General Coordinator of the Coordinating Unit of Persons with Disabilities in the Northwest, Mr Nyingcho Samuel presents to us the reality of the challenges and threats faced by Persons Living with Disabilities (PWDs) during this crisis.

The General Coordinator of the Coordinating
Unit of persons with disabilities (CUAPWD)
in the Northwest, Mr Nyingcho Samuel.

"There's ignorance on the part of the Cameroon government on our issues. Our social system is broken with the disappearance of our Regional Delegate of Social Affairs some five months ago. We now are in lack of social facilities to accommodate us. We are the most affected and no one seems to notice us. If care is not taken for the population of persons with disabilities, the number of  those affected would increase.

"When people run to refugee camps without PWDs,  you can only imagine what has happened to them.
We as persons with disabilities have launched a campaign to go find dialogue.  Everybody is talking about dialogue, but no one seems to know where dialogue is."

When you listen to him carefully you will accept with me that, particularly for those with newly acquired disabilities, living in conflict means struggling to obtain not only necessary medical treatment, but also access to food and sanitation.

Even if they are able to escape the fighting, PWDs face barriers, stigma, and discrimination once they reach refugee and internally displaced persons camps.

The World Health Organization estimates that about 15.3 percent of the population in any given area are living with some form of disability.

Head office of PWDs in the Northwest 

In government’s Emergency Humanitarian Assistance Plan to victims of the armed conflict in the North West and South West region, launched in June, the document ignored specific measures for people living with disabilities.

I suggest that  it's imperative for Cameroon Government, civil society and humanitarian organizations to focus on an inclusive relief plan.

                                           Ambe Macmillian A.