Giving adolescents a voice in resolving their issues: UNICEF launches Adolescents Advisory Group in Buea.

This was in the presence of other key stakeholders. This is in its drive to ensure the participation of children and adolescents in resolving and giving voice to issues this group is faced with in the North West and South West Regions.

AGAB is an initiative set up by UNICEF and partners for girls and with girls to ensure adolescents’ and children’s participation in decision-making on issues that concern them.

Speaking during the launching ceremony, Nadine Perrault, said UNICEF will continue working with all stakeholders, including government authorities, schools, parents and other key actors to ensure the right of participation of all children in the two regions in particular and Cameroon as a whole in decision-making.

To ensure this comes to fruition, she encouraged all stakeholders to ensure the meaningful participation of children by consulting children to get their views on issues concerning them. 

Such a move, she said, will empower children and adolescents by ensuring their voices are heard, rights protected and their potentials realised with every policy engaged by the government or other stakeholders.

AGAB will include 10 girls selected from adolescent groups from the North West and South West Regions because of their desire to make a difference in their community. 

In this light, the UNICEF Representative challenged them to be true role models for their peers and influence them to become actors for positive change.

Speaking to the press after the launching ceremony, Muhammad Idrees Khan, Chief of the UNICEF Field Office in Buea, said AGAB was a platform to give adolescent girls voices to shine, unite and discuss issues and the solutions to their challenges. 

As a result of the Anglophone crisis, adolescent girls in the North West and South West Region face challenges such as access to education, sexual violence, other psychosocial issues, and displacement with the whole population on the move. 

AGAB, he said, is a platform for them to talk about their issues. “We will work with them and support them to ensure a more inclusive approach…for them to speak about their issues,” he explained

Government salutes initiative

Addressing stakeholders during at the event, Vanessa Mbembe Mbong, Head of Division for Social and Economic Affairs at the Governor’s Office, said the government will always accompany the girls to carry out their tasks.

She promised the support of the authorities in ensuring that the girls become ambassadors of peace, and success, and great leaders of tomorrow.

Ediage Lucia, the Regional Delegate of Women Empowerment and the Family for the South West expressed her satisfaction with the knowledge and skills acquired by the girls. 

She stated that her wish is to see the girls pass the knowledge onto their friends and cause them to speak out openly about their challenges given that they are age mates.

The 10 girls, she added, are ambassadors and spokespersons for the drive to empower children and adolescents, while promising the needed support to ensure they truly become the leaders they have promised to become. 

“We have seen talent, commitment, and success in everything they are doing, so we will ensure they receive all the needed support to succeed,” Ediage said.

On her part, Ndefua Marie-Claire, one of the ten girls said AGAB had given her leadership skills and a compassionate spirit to be able to listen to the worries of her peers and voice them out to the public. 

In this light, she promised to educate her peers to enable them to reach the needed level of independence and responsibility.

This story was first published in The Guardian Post issue No:3177 of Tuesday July 23, 2024