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BWC NGO Team in Portugal
Joshua Konkankoh speaking at University of Coimbra
October 3, 2021Due to the civil war in Cameroon, since 2016, part of the Better World Cameroon - BWC NGO team was forced into exile. Portugal was the country of destination where, in 2019, with the support of the Tamera community, it was possible to continue the work previously developed out in Cameroon.
The civil war in Cameroon and the genocide that have accompanied it are both devastating and almost completely unreported. The arrival of Covid and the resulting governmental controls have created a situation where most people are unable to move or work, exacerbating the crisis for many into an immediate struggle for survival. The Bafut Ecovillage, the heart of a larger community project called Better World Cameroon, has been destroyed and its people dispersed.
A welcoming message from the President of the Parish Council of Relíquias to Joshua Konkankoh, Celestine Nchang, Crystel Koh, Elizabeth Nyemkuna, Grace Neba and Malcolm Koh, members of Better World Cameroon, who lived in the small town in southern Portugal as soon as they arrived in the country.
With the support of the Tamera community, BWC NGO regrouped some of the core team in Reliquias and then Frexio do Meio offered. BWC NGO is now operating in exile. From the communities on the ground, we are receiving increasingly distressing and urgent requests for our attention and resources; spiritual and emotional strength as well as for basic items like food, medicine, sanitary products and small sums of money for people taking refuge in the bush or in hiding in obscure corners of cities. We are under strong financial pressure to pay rent for rooms where some of our team and family members are taking shelter. The worst cases are those of women and children caught between the crossfire.
Thanks to the BWC NGO Team supported to come to Portugal by Tamera and international volunteers, we have designed African Way project and revised the "Bafut Ecovision2020" to get things moving again on a higher scale for a new future. We have carried out a base capacity needs assessment to work with community-university partnerships and research institutions (for example, Webchangers, Parlemento Scapethic and Nordic Bildung).
We have added a humanitarian lens to model the rehabilitation of the Bafut Ecovillage with community health, regenerative agriculture and midwifery as accelerator to girls education victim of the 5 year genocide in Ambazonia. We are presently developing MoU’s (Memorandum of Understanding) with friendly organizations with whom we intend to develop highly skilled learning series and communication platforms. We are using network weaving within the UN Catalyst Group and Weaving Lab to share our work with organizations interested in our form of regenerative education.
