07 Jan 2022 Project aims to change the way IDPs in Cameroon are seen, heard

WACC and the Christian Broadcasting Service of the Presbyterian Church in Cameroon have partnered to help promote a more positive attitude and counter hate narratives toward migrants in Douala, Cameroon’s economic capital.

Doula hosts more than 400,000 of the more than one million Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) who have fled in recent years to escape violence from the Boko Haram Crisis and the Anglophone Crisis.

A WACC-supported project will identify migrant citizen journalists from IDP communities in Douala to create inclusive and sustainable media content and gather community feedback on migration.  The radio programs will also help provide IDPS with the information they need to access aid, improve their living standards, and exercise their communication rights and human rights.

Beneficiaries of the project include migrant communities, migrant citizen journalists, host communities and community media houses.

“WACC is proud to partner with the Presbyterian Church of Cameroon to promote the communication rights of IDPs in Cameroon. The ongoing Anglophone Crisis in Cameroon has resulted in hundreds of deaths and thousands of people having to flee their homes to protect their lives. Unfortunately, the situation has received limited international attention,” said Lorenzo Vargas, WACC programme manager for Communication for Social Change. “In this context, WACC is keen to support IDPs in sharing their stories and exercising their communication rights, which we believe is essential to advance a peaceful solution to the conflict.”

The Presbyterian Church in Cameroon and its Christian Broadcasting Service Radio FM 95.3 have been at the forefront of issues involving peace journalism and conflict transformation in the country.

The project is part of WACC’s Migration and Communication Rights Programme and addresses the UN Sustainable Development Goals 10 (Reduce Inequality With and Among Countries, target 10.7 on migration) and 16 (Peace, Justice and Institutions, target 16.10 on access to information and fundamental freedoms).

Above: Amora Paul, who lives in the Borgop refugee camp in Djohong, Cameroon, works as an instructor for young people as part of a vocational training initiative by the Lutheran World Federation. Before he became a refugee, he worked as a tailor for 12 years in the Central African Republic. Photo by Albin Hillert/Life on Earth