The Minister of Youth Affairs and Civic Education, Mounouna Foutsou has granted audience on October 12, 2022 to Louisette-Renée Thobi epse Etame Ndedi, Secretary General of the Conference of Ministers of Youth and Sports of La Francophonie.
The 7th Secretary General of the Conference of Ministers of Youth and Sports of the Francophonie (Confejes) is the first woman elected, first Cameroonian citizen to be elected to this position within the institution.
She came to discuss the extent to which Confejes can support the Cameroonian Government in the supervision of Youth. It was also a question of reviewing the actions that the Cameroonian government is carrying out in favor youths.
After the the Youth Affairs Minister rolled out words of Welcome, he revealed some projects that need the participation of Confejes.
These include the revision of the National Youth Policy; the intensification of the youth entrepreneurship promotion program (PPEJ); Citizen participation of Youths. Specifically with young municipal and regional councils, Confejes could support in facilitating the sharing of projects with other countries, enabling them to benefit from them.
The Secretary General of Confejes was delighted to know that the Minister of Youth Affairs and Civic Education is reviewing the National Youth Policy in Cameroon. She revealed that this is an issue that is particularly close to her heart.
“Do you think that the youth counselor and animation that is currently being trained in our schools is equipped to meet the needs of young people?"
To her, a revision of training curricula is therefore essential, as well as youth policy in general, to be more adapted to the current needs of young people. She declared concerning the revision of this strategic document: “within the limits of our means and if we have seized ourselves in time, training being a priority", Louisette-Renée Thobi epse Etame Ndedi.
"Every year we will try to organize training sessions in a rural areas of Cameroon. It is a question of training a maximum of Ppej coordinator and training a maximum of young people in these localities, and we will be more sensitive in the groups formed by women”.
For the representative of the institution, it is a question of increasing the number of young people who have skills to supervise their peers and to undertake, in the different regions of Cameroon.
The Secretary General of Confejes has put forward the idea of a project to be implemented by the institution she heads. Starting from the observation that several youth projects very often fail due to a lack of funding or funding different from that proposed by the young persons.
The SG also revealed that the organization plans to set up a pilot project whereby youth projects will be fully funded and then will be monitored until for reimbursement of this support.
It is possible that Cameroon will be one of the countries in which the project will be tested. An approach welcomed by the Minister who indicated that "this approach is already used in the implementation of projects housed in Minjec, this initiative is welcome".
At the end of the exchanges, a document on the major projects of civic education was given to the Minjec by Louisette-Renée Thobi epse Etame Ndedi who received a traditional present in return.
Louisette-Renée Thobi epse Etame Ndedi was elected Secretary General of the Conference of Ministers of Youth and Sports of the Francophonie (Confejes) in Burkina Faso, February 2021 during the 38th ministerial session of the institution.
Communication unit MINJEC