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German-African Youth Initiative

This is the reason why we gathered in Bonn from the 29th of June to the 1st of July 2016. This International Conference was organised by the GermanFederal  Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development. The Conference, presided over by the German Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development His Excellency Gerd Müller saw the signing of a new partnership that will enable young volunteers from Africa to come and spend up to a year in Germany. Young Germans between the ages of 18 to 28 years have been going to spend a year to teach in certain schools in Tanzania, Cameroon, Ghana, Benin, Kenya and other African countries but following this new partnership, young Africans will also come and spend a year in Germany. In attendance was also the Prime Minister of the state of NRW Mrs Hannelore Kraft. On the 30th of June, there were specialist forums with the following themes: Mainstreaming Youth: Role of Youth exchanges in Africa, Beyond school exchange, Contact without travel: Digital networks and intercontinental partnerships and Forming the world together after youth exchange. On the 1st of July, the following Specialist Forums were held: Demands and Realilty:  How can equal youth exchange contribute to sustainable development and partnership? Capacity building for African actors: The role of education for sustainable development, Youth as a regenerator of country and city partnership, Striving towards equity in youth exchange, sensitivity to descrimination in youth exchange, Youth exchange and community development, the SDG 17 Global partnerships and sustainable development, Acquiring skills for work and life through youth exchange, preparing African volunteers, overcoming digital borders, quality standards in youth exchange and Global partnerships for youth exchange.

 

Launch / Coup d’envoi / Auftakt

Datum: Donnerstag, 30. Juni bis Freitag, 1. Juli 2016
Ort: Bonn
Absender: Engagement Global
Anmeldeschluss: 1. Juni 2016

Launch / Coup d’envoi / Auftakt

Launch of the African-German Youth Initiative (AGYI)

What motivates young people in Germany and African countries? How can we solve global challenges of our ‘One World’, together? How important are collaborative partnerships for youth exchanges? And how can modern media support international engagement?
These are some of the questions being addressed by the African-German Youth Initiative. The aim of the initiative is to promote youth exchanges between Germany and African countries, while relying on existing voluntary service and exchange programmes. Furthermore, the initiative intends to strengthen African and German civil society.
The AGYI will be officially launched on 30 June 2016. Under the motto “Shaping tomorrow’s world today – global responsibility, youth participation”, Federal Minister Dr. Gerd Müller, and the Minister President of North Rhine Westphalia, Ms. Hannelore Kraft, alongside senior officials of the African Union and German and African civil society, will discuss the implementation of “Agenda 2030 for sustainable development”, adopted last September by the United Nations. The day will offer a diverse programme which ends at 22:00.
On 1 July 2016, you are invited to take part in dialogue exchanges with various representatives from government structures, and members of German and African civil society .The various possibilities and operating principles of the AGYI will be presented, in particular the consulting and funding opportunities as well as the new African partnership structure. Youth groups will share their experiences and initiatives of African-German youth exchanges, and will give insight into their activities. We encourage and invite you to participate in the specialist forums, where you can learn about and discuss key issues such as: How can we as partners contribute to a comprehensive image of Germany and Africa; what does partnership in the context of youth exchanges mean; what role does modern media play in the digital age; or how can music have an impact in solving global challenges?
The launch of AGYI will take place in Bonn together with the ‘ZukunftsTour’ – themed ‘ONE WORLD – Our Responsibility’. The ’ZukunftsTour’ is a roadshow across all German states since 2015, promoting the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It spreads the message of the Charter of the Future, a process initiated by Federal Minister Dr. Gerd Müller in 2014. The ‘ZukunftsTour’ is organised by Engagement Global on behalf of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), and in cooperation with the respective German states.
Program
Thursday, 30. June 2016
09.00-14.30 Zukunftswerkstatt Zukunftstour Bonn
12.00-13.30 Global Responsibility-Young participation
Speech
Hannelore Kraft, Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia
Speech
Dr. Gerd Müller, Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development
Keynote
S.E. Dr. Martial De – Paul Ikounga , Commissioner for Human Resources, Science and Technology at the African Union
Dialogue changes the world: Young people in discussion
Symbolic start of the African-German Youth Initiative (AGYI)
13.30-14.30 Lunch break
14.30-16.00 Start of the scientific part of the AGYI opening event: Move it ! – Youth Exchange as an engine for global partnerships
Panel discussion “Youth Exchange as an engine for global partnerships” – Panel with state guests from pilot countries and representatives of youth
16.00-18.30 Professional forums “Potential of youth exchanges for global partnerships and commitment”
4 parallel specialist forums, in addition to theme islands
18.30 Start of the evening program
22.00 End
Friday,
1 July 2016
08.30 Admission and Registration
09.15-09.45 Official welcome by Birgit Pickel (BMZ, Head of Civic Engagement, weltwärts, Engagement Global) and Dr Beatrice Njenga (AU Commission)
09.45-12.00 Professional forums “Demands and Reality: What can equal youth exchange contribute to sustainable development and partnership?”
6 parallel forums, in addition to theme islands
12.00-13.30 Lunch break
13.30-15.45 Professional forums “Good Practices – How Youth Exchange is lived”
6 parallel specialist forums, in addition to theme islands
15.45-16.40 Roundtable with civil AGYI stakeholders on the topic “Connecting horizons: The future of the African-German Youth Initiative”
16.40-17.00 Conclusion by Birgit Pickel (BMZ) and Dr Beatrice Njenga (AU Commission)

Coup d’envoi de l’Initiative Germano-Africaine de la Jeunesse (DAJ) Auftakt der Deutsch-Afrikanischen Jugendinitiative (DAJ)

Venue / Lieu de la manifestation/ Ort

World Conference Center Bonn
Platz der Vereinten Nationen 2
53113 Bonn

contact person/ interlocutrice/ Ansprechpartnerin

Heidi Thoma | +49 30 25482 110

Health Project

In the year 2012 Afrika Initiative e.V. Germany in close collaboration with Afrika Initiative Cameroon started the construction of a 12 room clinic in the capital city Yaounde. This project was in respond to many calls from many NGOs and Civil Society Organizations in the health sector. After several meetings with stakeholders, it was discovered that the cost of treatment in both government and private hospitals and clinics in the capital were too high for ordinary citizens to afford. That at least 25% deaths in most of our hospitals is because patients cannot afford the exorbitant amounts levied on them in private and other hospitals. Sadly also, because the families cannot pay the high cost of treatment which results to death, their corpses are abandoned in the mortuary only to be left at the mercy of the city council for burial. The situation is deplorable and sometimes heartbreaking. It is on this background that the National Coordinator of Afrika Initiative, Cameroon initiated this project.

Our goal is to have a full hospital in these 105 hectares of land by the year 2018. The aim is to treat patients at no cost. We have at the moment 2 doctors and 8 nurses who are working in the hospital including volunteers. Afrika Initiative Germany has also negotiated with a number of Doctors in Germany who have accepted to go and work in the clinic for up to three months a year. By so doing, they will also share their expertise with their Cameroonian counterparts who are also volunteers in the clinic.

The project received the full moral, financial and material support of our Cameroonian Football Legend Roger Milla. The Roger Milla Foundation “Fondation Coeur d’ Afrique donated modern beds, Maternity Beds and other equipments to the Clinic. The handing over of the gifts coincided with the opening ceremony of Afrika Initiative new office in Yaounde. The colorful ceremony took place on the 30th of August, 2014. Presided over by the National Coordinator of Afrika Initiative Cameroon Madam Josephine, it was heavily attended by a representative of the Yaounde City Council, Representative of Roger Milla Foundation, Administrative and Military Officials in and around Yaounde.

What we urgently need now is medical equipment, mattresses, beds, bed sheets, blankets, blankets towels, drugs of all kind.

If you can help us, please send us an email or better sill, write us us.

If you can help us, please send us an email or better sill, write us us.

The cassava project – Introduction & Planning

In May, 2013 we started a Cassava Project in the South West Region of Cameroon in a village called Kake in Kumba as part of our drive to empower women and reduce poverty.7

A group started in 2003 with twelve (12) women from the same neighborhood. They came together with main goal of helping each other in “farm njangi work”. They worked on each other’s farm on rotating basis; starting with clearing, tilling, planting and weeding. In this way, a large portion is covered on one day.

Later in the same year, they introduced a compulsory 500 FRS weekly kitchen njangi contribution. Every beneficiary used the money to buy a kitchen utensil of her choice for her household.

These activities continued until 2006 when the group seeing what was happening in other places invited the chief of Agric post and Agric Extension worker for KAKE to work with them. They; like other farmers wanted to improve their knowledge on how to better grow crops and equally to attract some financial support from the Government and other funding bodies.

The Project is aimed at transforming Cassava into garri, water-fufu, myondo, kum-kum, starch, cassava flour that can be used for baking. At the end of the project, we hope to realise the following:

  1. Minimize post harvest loses
  2. Reduce manual labour. The provision of a cassava processing unit will instantly reduce two hours manual work into less than five minutes, allowing the women to not only grind their own cassava, but also enough to sell at the market.
  • Protect the health of women and children
  1. Transform almost all cassava from group members and other farm families in Kake and other surrounding villages.
  2. Increase the family income through the sales of cassava by-products with its added value hence alleviating poverty and thus increasing the living standards of the peasant farmer, through the cultivation of 15ha of cassava and the production and transformation of 225 tons of cassava tubers into garri by June 2015.
  3. Enable the women to assist their husbands to send their children to school especially the girls who are often sent to early marriages because husbands prefer to send but male children to school due to lack of funds

The project started on the 21st of May, 2013 with a meeting organised by Afrika Initiative e. V. Cameroon in collaboration with the Women’s Group. It brought together village and traditional heads and elites of Kake. As tradition stipulates, bags of rice, drinks and bags of salt were distributed to the villagers. T. Shirts with the logo of Niedersachsen Unwelt Stiftung were distributed to the Women’s Group. These T. Shirts including the above mentioned items were provided by Afrika Initiative e. V. Cameroon.

Due to serious rainfall, construction work started on the 31st of August, 2013. The building that will host the transformation of cassava is still under construction. Nevertheless, cassava was planted in the 10 hectares of land acquired for that purpose. 120.000 cuttings of cassava were planted by the women.

Photo: Training and demonstration at the cassava sight. What you see here are cuttings of cassava to be planted by the women’s group. They were receiving the last demonstration exercise before they started planting. The following has so far been achieved:

  • Acquisition of 10 hectares of land
  • All traditional rites with the villagers and elites accomplished
  • The population identified poverty as their major problem which has manifested itself through inability to pay children’s school fees, hospital bills, poor malnutrition, poor housing and sanitation.
  • Capacity of Women’s Group strengthened through training sessions and seminars, workshops, meetings, exchange visits etc.
  • Markets/ Customers where the extra garri, water-fufu will be sold identified.
  • Quality cassava cuttings procured
  • The internal structure of the Women’s Group strengthened and solidarity bond among members increased
  • Capacity of Women’s Group built on rapid multiplication of cassava seed material using the two notes states
  • A demonstration unit created with the Women’s Group and other farmers in and around Kake and Kumba.
  • Construction site acquired
  • Services of technicians available and at standby
  • Construction plan and building estimates established
  • Building materials though not all procured
  • Construction work ongoing
  • Building roofed

Remaining work:

Plumbering work

  • Electrification
  • Plastering
  • Procure materials for plumbering, electrification and plastering
  • Hire labour
  • Carry out the above work
  • Plant cassava
  • Procure processing machine and other Equipments
  • Install machines
  • Install women for the cassava processing
  • Train farmers on good transformation techniques
  • Restructure and install Management Committees amongst the women
  • Put MANCOM in place
  • Harvest cassava
  • Transform cassava into various cassava by-products
  • Follow up activities and report