Youth Empowerment - 1000 Volunteers to Start Training

The second phase of the training programme for youth volunteers will be launched nationwide in the days ahead. Speaking during the press briefing yesterday September 5, 2013 in Yaounde., the General Manager of the National Civic Service Agency for Participation in Development (NCSAPD), Oswald Ayuketah Tambe, said the institution has opted to train 1,000 volunteers from socially-vulnerable groups such as the Mbororos, pygmies, street children, albinos and youths from frontier zones.

Oswald Ayuketah used the occasion to announce that from 2014, the NCSAPD will select and train young people between 15 and 17 for two months and those from 17 years and above for a period of six months.

Concerning the frontier zones, youths from Darak, Bakassi, Akwaya and Kye-ossi have been targeted. Furthermore, the distribution of financial assistance to the youths in the country will be done in four zones. Zone One comprises the Adamawa, North and Far North Regions for the Mbororos and Peuls; Zone Two for the East and South for the pigmies; Zone Three constitutes the Centre and Littoral Regions and essentially for street children while Zone Four concerns the West and North West Regions for mainly Mbororos. Zone Five will concern the South West Region and comprise youth volunteers from frontier zones such as Akwaya, Ekok, Bakassi and Bimbia.

In 2012, 6,000 volunteers were trained and granted financial assistance worth FCFA 770 million. The assistance enabled 9,333 youth associations to carry out income-generating projects. The second phase will involve 1,000 youths and they will be trained within a period of two months in 30 centres.