By Doh James Sonkey
The Minister of Youth Affairs and Civic Education, Mounouna Foutsou has disclosed that the National Mass Education caravan touched some 5 million Cameroonians at home and abroad. He was speaking while chairing last August 30, 2024 at the Independence Square in Yaounde, the closing ceremony of the National Mass Education caravan under the theme, “youth, civic commitment and economic patriotism for healthy, educational, productive and meaningful school holidays”.
The caravan was launched last July 23, 2024 in Maroua, Far North region with the aim of raising awareness among youths and adults about issues of social concern and rearming them morally and civically to promote ethical, civic-minded and responsible behaviour in the society.
Speaking at the closing ceremony, Minister Mounouna Foutsou exhorted youths to be conscious so that together we build a better nation. He told the youths to embrace living together and social cohesion so dear to the President of the Republic, H.E Paul Biya.
A former drug dealer, military man and a rapist, Jean Claude Messomo who has repented, advised other youths not to be like him who dishonoured the country.
In a chat with the media at the end of the ceremony, Minister Mounouna Foutsou said, “I think you have seen the statistics given, it means around 5 million Cameroonians were touched by this caravan in the 10 regions in the physical and also online with our thousand e-volunteers. This means that the sensitisation messages have gone all over the national territory and even abroad. That was the objective because the different thematic created by this caravan is the responses to the context of our country now. The different challenges and stakes in the domain of social, economic and cultural development and particularly in the domain of peace, national cohesion and uncivil behaviour, hate speech, violence, extremism, civic responsibility and patriotic engagement. These are some lacks that this caravan is targeting. We do hope that after this first edition as wished by the different stakeholders, we will continue the sensitisation. You have seen that we launched the civic and patriotic back to school”, he said.
The Youth Affairs and Civic Education boss concluded that, “This caravan has already reinforced the civic and patriotic holidays, so it means that other caravans will be organised around the year, this academic year to accompany our mass mobile animation teams, our community mediators and different volunteers, youth associations, movements and mass education associations so that all corners of our country should be touched because as highlighted in the diagnosis, our villages and quarters population are sometimes misinformed or they do not have the right information that can engage them in the development of our nation, so we should face this challenge”, he urged.