Increasing access to justice in rural Cameroon

The Global Conscience Initiative (GCI) Centre for Arbitration and Mediation (CAMs) project commenced effectively in the Month of April with three members of the CAM’s team bent on achieving the goals outlined. Some communities were set aside to accomplished the goals of CAMs of work on ten (10) communities categorized in two groups. The groups that need to receive follow up workshops and the other group with sensitization and workshops on the CAMs curriculum. These communities include (Mofako Bekondo,Three Corners Ekombe,Teke, Bakossi Camp,Bombe Bakundu, Mbalangi, Ediki, Barombi Native,Kosalla II,and Kosalla III) all around Kumba with focus also on selecting the community that will solely benefit the one year CAMs program.

The work in the months of April and May consisted of Community preparatory visits to all the traditional Councils of the aforementioned communities. The team’s motives for these visits were to observe the traditional Council Sessions to that have already received the workshops on mediation and related topics. These follow up workshops are based on some specific topics that particular to some challenges or problems still plaguing the management of the settlement of the disputes in the community councils. New topics came up like Formality, proper organization, gender empowerment etc. The councilors of these communities were happy to receive the GCI CAMs team for fulfilling their promise to visit them regularly and see a continuity of the project. They could present some problems to the team in their move to implement what they were taught in the previous year.

The team carried a survey both in the community and amongst the councilors to be able to measure the implementation of the lessons taught during the workshop in the previous years. Mr. John Fongang who is the Chairman of the Bombe council said “ Thanks to this workshops, my councilors have become very conscious on decision making”. This is the impact we are expecting from the community. Even though the results of the survey did not project a great improvement in majority of the communities, they was definitely some remarkable progress.

As a new move of the project to create a booklet containing all the varieties of cases and judgements handled by the communities, over the course of the visits, members of the CAMs team took down a number of Cases that had been resolved in each community in order to compile them and publish in the nearest future. This will help the councils to facilitate the judgment process with this jurisprudence. A copy of the publication will be sent out to all of the communities to serve as a judgment decision guide whereby Councilors both present and the future could refer to during Council Sessions as model for better decision making.

The month of June was characterized fully by workshops based on the evaluation on the visits to each community and the problems discovered in dispute solving. Majority of the councils received the workshops and also extended to the month of July. Due to the heavy rainy seasons and the bad roads, the dateline for the workshops was not respected because of many postponements. But all was done to make sure that the planned meetings held. The number of presence in the workshops meeting was very encouraging to most of the communities than last year because of the need that they have realized for their various communities. The project was rich with human resources by many persons who had applied to do internship with Global Conscience both in the National Universities and International Universities.

Workshops extended to the month of July so as to finish the communities earmarked to accomplish CAMs goal for the year. It was really a successful quarter as the community councilors requested for more like Oliver Twist. The team is now preparing survey sheets to go back to the communities and still measure what has just been put in the community.

We shall remain very faithful and diligent as we immensely thank our donors for the wonderful contributions they are making to this work, Human rights and humanity as a whole to this global world. Your immense contributions have been of utmost importance to the success of this project and we are calling on you not to relent on your efforts as we look forward to a more challenging days ahead. We are grateful for your support.

The Centre for Arbitration and Mediation (CAMs)

 The Centre for Arbitration and Mediation (CAMs) project ended very successfully in the year 2014. It achieved its goal in the Community of Bombe Bakundu village in the Mbonge Sub division, South West Region, Cameroon which was the targeted community for that year. After the evaluation, the councilors manifested a mastery of the knowledge on Mediation skills that they have acquired from the workshops carried out by the CAMs team. Despite some challenges in really implementing all that they have learned, they were visibly changes in the dispute settlement session. Orderly speaking, respect of ground rules, fines which were not hash, no drinking of palm wine before or during session, Fair trial etc. were all evidence that they was a change I the council to attract the trust of the community members to bring their cases to them. The number of cases that they received in the months preceding the workshops increased.

 After visiting some communities for sensitization in a move to select the new community for the CAMs project 2014, GCI CAMs team visit to some communities attracted many community interests in the project and appealed to the CAMs team to visit them and teach them these skills of Mediation and about good governance. The team visited Ekombe I&II, Kosala II&III who did some changes and replaced some old councillors, Mbalangi whose council members are new, Barombi Kang, Teke and Etam traditional councils, Ediki, and Kake traditional councils who are operating as the Centers for Arbitration and Mediation. The need was glaring for them to receive the knowledge of the CAMs curriculum. The staff also witnessed the way some of the cases where resolved and could take note of the areas that they portrayed their weaknesses and could quickly assessed their needs as concerns improving on their skills of managing disputes. Coupled with other factors to select a new community, the CAMs team resorted to do survey in more than one community. This is because, they realized that these communities have changed most of their old members and definitely have a new council that needs to be schooled on the Mediation skills and techniques.

 As survey for the need assessment began in January 2014, the team could diagnose so many problems hindering the smooth functioning of the council. The skills were inadequate, poor relationship with the community members in terms of trust and heavy fines and many other problems hindering the implementing of the justice and respect for human rights in the community. The team is assessing the survey now and following the developments of the dispute resolutions in the communities that have received these workshop teachings to build up a code that will help and guide the traditional councilors do their work of dispute settlement better. This will be written as compared to traditional oral laws and procedures that are practiced.

 We shall immensely thank our donors for the wonderful contributions they are doing to improve on this work, Human rights and humanity as a whole. That, their contributions in 2013 led to the success of this project and we are calling on you not to relent on your efforts as we look forward to a more challenging 2014. We are grateful for your support.