Douala, Cameroon, May 10 to 13, 2022

From May 10 to 13, 2022, UNESCO IICBA in collaboration with the UNESCO Regional office for Central Africa and Arigatou International conducted a training on peace, resilience, and PVE-E. Countries such as Burundi, Cameron, Central Africa Republic and Chad attended the regional training. A total of 40 participants composed of educators from universities, pedagogical inspectors and curriculum developers from the ministry of education and youth peace advocates from universities in Cameroon were trained. IICBA was physically represented by Mr Saliou Sall, Senior Programme Coordinator and Dr Eyerusalem Azmeraw, Project Officer at IICBA.

This training is part of the project on “Prevention of extremism and its resurgence amid the COVID-19 pandemic through education in Africa, aligned with the spirit of TICAD7 and NAPSA”, funded by the government of Japan.

The training focused on understanding and identifying conflicts and violence conflict resolution mechanisms and peace building in central Africa with specific focus on the above four countries. The training also covered the role of Education for peace building and transformation, transformative pedagogy for peace building, Safe learning environment, Ethics of learning to live together, Competencies for peace builders, assessment and learner- led actions as well as engagement of youth on peace building processes. Countries also drafted institutional action plans to cascade the training and enhance the countries peace building processes.

 The closing of the workshop was attended by:

-  HE Ambassador Takaoka NOZOMU, Ambassador of Japan in Cameroon

-  Mr. Paul COUSTERE, Director of UNESCO Yaoundé office

-  Dr. Yumiko YOKOZEKI, Director of IICBA

- Mr KENGNE Simplice Hervé, Representative of the Governor of the littoral region of Cameroon

In his closing remarks, HE Ambassador Takaoka NOZOMU, Ambassador of Japan in Cameroon, highlighted the Japanese Government's support for institution building and human resource development through training sessions to help promote the consolidation of peace, resilience and violence prevention.

Using a quote from Albert Einstein, he emphasized the importance of peace education: “Peace cannot be maintained by force; it can only be realized through understanding.” Finally, he encouraged the trainees to complete and put into practice the action plans they have drafted as well as the recommendations of this training.

HE Ambassador Takaoka informed the participants that TICAD 8 will be held from August 27 to 28, 2022, in Tunisia. This year’s topic is “Peace and Stability”. He reiterated Japan’s renewed Japan's willing to cooperate with Africa towards TICAD8.

Subsequently, Dr Yumiko Yokozeki, Director of UNESCO IICBA stressed the need to empower and educate young people in Africa to make them ambassadors of peace and the prevention of violent extremism, particularly in this time of Covid 19. To achieve this, she underlined the importance of the training and involvement of teachers and teacher trainers.

She also called on all trainees to apply the lessons they learned to cascade this training in their universities and communities and assured them of continued support. “UNESCO in general and UNESCO IICBA in particular will spare no effort to support you in the implementation of the relevant action plans that you have just designed.” she said.

Dr Yumiko thanked the Government of Japan for their support to this project, Arigatou International, UNESCO Yaounde, and all the participants for making this training a success.

On behalf of the Governor of the Littoral Region, Mr KENGNE Simplice Hervé, Inspector General of the Littoral Regional Services, delivered a speech recalling how crucial this workshop is as it comes at a time when the Central African sub-region has recently been facing security crises and the role of education systems and teachers remains crucial to guarantee peace and stability in the medium and long term. “I am delighted that the capacity building of teacher trainers, with the support of UNESCO, will help our respective education systems to better prepare young people to live in a better, peaceful and harmonious world.” He said.

Mr. KENGNE pointed out that the Teacher's Guide on Transformative Pedagogy  will help teachers to strengthen their operational capacities in the face of the many challenges imposed by today's society, to improve their perceptions of social life and consequently to bring more evidence to the construction of their respective countries.

He ended by thanking UNESCO for their continued support to Cameroon and Africa in education and training, the workshop organizers as well as all the participants.

At the end of the workshop, every trained participant received a certificate of completion.