Resolving Anglophone crisis: Community dialogue is not slogan to be adopted overnight – Esther Omam.

Within the context of the Anglophone crisis, and at the height of the violence, Reach Out Cameroon, working alongside other grassroots and women-led organisations, pioneered community dialogues for peace and social cohesion at a time when fear, mistrust, and silence had taken hold.

We brought together community systems, women leaders, traditional authorities, youth, and local actors to address grievances before they hardened into violence.

These efforts later evolved into structured Peace Tables, linking voices from the grassroots to national-level spaces. For many women, this was the first time their lived experiences of fear, loss, and resilience were heard directly at national platforms. The depth of these testimonies left few indifferent - some listened in tears, others were left speechless.

The relevance of these approaches has since extended beyond Cameroon. The community dialogue and peace table models developed and implemented by Reach Out Cameroon and its partners have been shared at the international level, across various peacebuilding and reflection spaces. 

More recently, these experiences were presented in Italy, including with local councils and schools in places such as Bergamo and Nembro, as well as through the Perugi–Assisi peace platform, as practical examples of community-rooted peacebuilding in contexts of protracted crisis.

Today, many actors approach Reach Out Cameroon to better understand this model and draw lessons from it. The key lesson from this experience is clear: community dialogue is not a slogan to be adopted overnight; it is a process built on trust, consistency, and sustained presence within communities.

This experience continues to reaffirm a fundamental truth: communities must heal first before any externally driven solutions can take root. Sustainable peace cannot be imposed; it must be built with those who have carried the burden of conflict.

For this reason, meaningful progress will require continued collaboration between public authorities and civil society actors who have been at the forefront of these community-led efforts and whose actions have already demonstrated positive results. We all share the responsibility to make this happen.

Dialogue before violence. Proximity before force. People before politics. This is not weakness. This is prevention. This is humanising security.

Omam Esther Eringo Cha Ekombo

Executive Director, Reach Out Cameroon