Respect Us! Give Us Opportuniy, Not Charity

Fighting HIV/AIDS and other diseases like malaria is one the Millennium Development Goals(MDGs) voted by the United Nation’s in the year 2000. Given that this fight seems to be slowing down and that more than 5% of Cameroonians are living with HIV/AIDS-60% of which are women and 40% falling in the youths category-there is a cause for concern on the strategy to be used for the achievement of MDGs.

Conscious that handicapped persons are also celebrated in December and given that living with HIV/AIDS is more and more considered a handicapped. This article is going to dwell on the inclusion of the handicapped in the achievement of MDGs.

Concerning the non-achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by most countries of the global south, much has been said and so much more left unsaid. But if there is one thing that has so often been ignored by policy makers, politicians and all those in charge of implementing policies that will lead to a timely  achievement of MDGs, it the absence of human rights in these goals. The non-inclusion of human rights in the MDGs means the exclusion of handicapped persons, indigenous people, and other minority groups in their achievement.

Given that handicapped persons constitute 10% of Cameroon’s population and are among the poorest people in the country, it is evident that talking of poverty, the fight against hunger, improvement of maternal health care and reduction of infant mortality child is pretentious if nothing is done to the more than 85% of these handicapped persons aged14-64 years who are jobless and the other 15% of them who are confined to shoe mending, shoe shinning and other informal sector activities.

Also, talking about achieving universal access to education without paying particular attention to the fact that less than 5% of handicapped children in Cameroon can afford to

go to school with only 2% of these handicapped children completing secondary school, is wishful thinking.  What about the  ever increasing number of albino children who because of their sight defect and the inability of their parents to buy them glasses drop out daily from school?

The government of Cameroon recruited 25000 certificate holders in 2011 under a special recruitment scheme. But none of them was an handicapped person and as if this was not enough, a good number of handicapped persons were sent away from public schools because they could not afford to pay the required fees.This despite the fact that they are officially exempt from the payment of school fees in public schools in Cameroon. To protest against the above acts, the handicapped organized a protest march in front of the prime minister’s office in October 2011 but were violently dispersed by the police and military forces.

Can we say of a country whose government carries out such horrible acts against its own very population, even if it achieves all the MDGs, that it is developed? Can MDGs be achieved if the strategy to achieve them is not inclusive? Can the achievement of MDGs, as they are now, lead to sustainable development?

My answer to the above questions is ‘NO’. Because I am intimately convinced that, unless inclusive and people-centered, no development plan can produce any sustainable results. It is high time for our government and civil society to listen to and amplify the voices of the handicapped so that they are heard and acted upon by policy making and implementing structures because like all poor people, “they long to belong to, and participate in their communities on equal footing with others. Most of all, they do not want charity. They want opportunity”, as former world bank President James Wolfehnson once put it.  Anything short of this will make the achievement of MDGs in Cameroon, even by 2035, a far-fetched dream.

How can one expect a country like Cameroon to achieve the MDGs related to literacy, health, and economic empowerment when it does not take the handicapped into consideration when designing and constructing public buildings and other infrastructure like roads, hospitals, universities, and schools?

How can one expect Cameroon to be democratic,united,and emerging by 2025,as exposed in its vision 2035,when more 10% of its population(handicapped persons) are disenfranchised due to their non-consideration when designing and producing electoral material(especially ballots) and situating polling stations(Most being inaccessible to the handicapped)?

Realizing that the above is impossible without respect for human rights, we, at the Education 4Development Foundation (E4DF) have made human rights the 9^th MDG and therefore one of the elements of our advocacy and awareness creation campaign on a participative,timely, and inclusive achievement of MDGs in our community. Through our MDGs participative achievement programme, we reached out to more than 1000 pupils and students in 2011 and look forward to reaching out to a greater number in 2012.

Youths:Cornerstones in the Achievement of MDGs

 “No challenge to the global community has higher importance than the fight against poverty. And nothing is more central  to that fight than working together in new and dynamic  partnerships”,once  wrote James D Wolfensohn.These words from former world bank president  draws the attention of the whole world  to the urgency of partnering together to fight our common enemy-Poverty.Yes!, I said our common enemy because in one way or the other we are all affected by poverty.

Malnutrition,illiteracy,poor sanitation,high child mortality rates,inadequate access to information  and communication technologies,gender imbalance are some of the most common indicators of poverty which  is the lot of more than half of  Cameroon’s 20 000 000 inhabitants;64.2 percent of which are less than 25 years old.

Youths, who are the most affected by  poverty either directly or indirectly; are the most important and should be the most cherished gifts of any nation.But this  is a fact  that is often ignored by most  decision makers of our world. The lack of interest for youth involvement and participation in policy formulation and implementation  is one of the most visible traits of decision makers in Cameroon which has no minister  younger than forty and  whose minister of youth affairs is a man in his late forties.

The exclusion and  marginalisation of  youths has made their participation in the running of the country so marginal and resulted in  development being considered as  either as the “government’s” or “politician’s” thing.
The conclusions of the 65th General Assembly of the United Nations  Organisation(UNO) of September 2010 that nations? especially developing ones like Cameroon, still had  a long way to go if  MDGs are ever to be achieved, is unavoidably linked to the unilateral conception of development  and “confiscation” of  all development efforts from the people, especially the young ones, by politicians in these countries.

 

But can extreme poverty, HIV/AIDS and other diseases be eradicated or reduced  without youths being associated to efforts aimed at doing so? Can infant mortality,illiteracy, gender based violence  and environmental degradation be achieved  without  involving youths and most especially those in the rural areas who are most  affected by these ills?

The answer to the above questions  is of course a  big “NO”. Youths have consistently  proven wherever and whenever they  have been given an opportunity that their numerical strength (close to  half of the world’s population  and 86 percent of the population of the global south  fall in the 15-24 years bracket),their  energy and unending  search for new  and ever innovative  solutions  to today’s global challenges are atools to be reckoned  with if poverty and suffering of all sorths is  to be overcomed and the MDGs  achieved.
I am convinced  and so intimately that  the time for youths has come. It is time that the long ignored potentials  of  youths become the cornerstones that they are for the achievement of our MDGs.

As the UN International Year of Youths under theme: Dialogue and Mutual Understanding  gradually draws an end, it is high time we continue reflecting on the role of youths in building a better and just world.