This project will help 100 girls and boys to get the skills necessary to thrive and make an impact in their community. Sports, creativity, entrepreneurship, ICT, STEM, arts & crafts, are all part of the Youth Engagement Program (YEP). A holiday school for underprivileged children in an under served area of Cameroon. YEP children explore their limits and become future community leaders, entrepreneurs and change makers.
Formal education in Cameroon relies on repetition, obedience, and respect. Inherited from a colonial system, these traits inhibit freedom, play, pro-activeness, and creativity. Creating a generation of youths that are unable to find employment and/or innovate. Those that are educated make attempts at government application processes. Those that are not start micro businesses, copying their neighbors' occupations and flooding local markets. Many of them remain idle and unemployed for years.
Children are naturally creative and playful. With a small push this spirit can also be maintained as an adult. With YEP we provide alternative education to 100 children and teenagers. They get in touch with technology, connect with their artistic selves, learn about their Human Rights, the environment and other critical topics, practice sports and even dive into entrepreneurship. So far we have helped more than 800 children in 8 editions.
Innovative citizens are more resourceful, raise innovative children and look differently at community problems. Youths will gain practical skills to be used all through their lives, to get better at school, be more successful, generate income and be more creative. They will be living examples to others. Moreover, by focusing on teenagers at risk during the holiday period, the program makes a a contribution to the reduction of STIs teenage pregnancy and delinquency rates.
