The year 2020 has been a particularly challenging year for the Fisiy Foundation & Leadership center (FFLC) as the political crisis in the Anglophone regions of Cameroon intensified with no end in sight. Since 2016, schools in the two Anglophone regions of Cameroon have either been closed or function intermittently because separatists in the two regions have intensified their fight for an independent country. What started as a protest by lawyers and teachers in the two regions, became a movement for school and economic boycotts, and has now turned into a racket with rampant kidnappings for ransom. With their dreams turning into nightmares, young men and women are joining these separatists in search for a meaningful life with dignity.

So, when FFLC got word that schools will be opened again in these regions during the 2020-2021 school year, we leaped with joy to ensure every step is taken to reiterate our faith in our youth by ensuring that they have every opportunity to invest in their future. In an era characterized by misinformation and deficits in truth, education inevitably emerges as the foundation for an informed and meaningful life for our youth who will become the spearhead of our development. It is in recognition of the critical role the youth will play that FFLC donated exercise books to the schools in Lassin-Noni, the present headquarters of FFLC. As the area returns to normalcy, with guarantees of safety and security for our staff, FFLC will be looking forward to revamping our activities on the ground on several fronts.

First, FFLC will get back to its Tech literacy program, with its attendant access to the internet and social media. This program provides a new platform for the exercise of voice and accountability. By providing skills for internet connectivity to the rest of the world, the tech literacy program can play a significant role in increasing the social inclusion of disadvantaged groups to access new opportunities and exercise their voice on issues that affect their lives and livelihoods. Since tech literacy has emerged as the critical rite of passage in the search for opportunity into the modern marketplace, failure to address the needs of the “android-generation” will represent a massive failure of vision by policymakers

Second, through its “Youth Engagement and Entrepreneurship Seed Fund” FFLC will be supporting new and creative socio-economic initiatives by those youth groups who need a second chance. These include working with local artisans and craftsmen to create a new platform for the display and celebration of their works. FFLC will, therefore, be working with these innovators to facilitate better access to markets without compromising the intrinsic value of their art.

Third, FFLC will also revamp its Youth Common Initiative Group (CIG), initiated in 2018 to produce market gardening products for both the local and regional markets. This initiative aims to address the youth unemployment crisis in the locality.

We believe that by focusing on the youth, we will help reweave our deeply torn social fabric and provide a shared platform for reconciliation by serving as the glue that holds the community together in charting its shared destiny.