FRI & Cameroon Link Become Strategic Partners

James Achanyi-Fontem
Focal Point FRI Cameroon

Farm Radio International, FRI, endorsed a formal strategic partnership agreement with Cameroon Link that became effective from the 1st April, 2010. Within the partnership arrangement, FRI will assist Cameroon Link to act as its focal point for Cameroon to promote community radio initiative actions at the service of small scale farmers and breeders over a specific time period through an engagement agreement. This partnership comes after many years of fruitful collaboration.
In accordance with its Partnership Policy, Farm Radio International enters into Strategic Partnership Agreements with organizations that share a commitment to serving the communication needs of smallholder farmers through effective radio services, and that have values and goals that are consistent with or complementary to those of Farm Radio International.
The partnership agreement signed between FRI and Cameroon Link outlines shared goals of the two organizations and describe how they will work together to achieve the goals.
Farm Radio International
Farm Radio International is a Canadian-based, not-for-profit organization working in direct partnership with over 325 radio broadcasters in 39 African countries to fight poverty and food insecurity. Its mission is to support broadcasters in developing countries to strengthen small-scale farming and rural communities. It was established 30 years ago in response to the fact that farm radio broadcasts in the global south did not, for the most part, serve small-scale farmers. Rather, they were geared toward large-scale commercial farmers – an audience with very different needs from the largely subsistence farmers that make up the large majority of the populations of these regions. By producing and sharing radio scripts, a weekly news and information service, and other valuable resources with radio broadcasters, Farm Radio International improves the relevance and quality and increases the quantity of farm radio programming of partner stations that, collectively, serve some 220 million small-scale farmers in Africa.
Cameroon Link
Cameroon Link is a registered charity, not-for-profit organisation created on the 9th September 1991 with head office in Douala, Cameroon. Its objectives include the promotion of food security through interaction with small scale peasant farmers and breeders with media practitioners, especially those involved in community radio action. Media action focuses on poverty alleviation through the promotion of food and nutrition, community health development, women’s empowerment, human assistance, advocacy, education and communication on the rights to adequate food for all.
Cameroon Link was legalized on the 23rd November, 1992 as a national umbrella NGO of professional dialogue groups of communication specialists, journalists, agriculture, health and social welfare workers, following a crucial lack of good circulation of information on self-help development policies, social welfare, infant and young child nutrition and food-self sufficiency in Cameroon. Cameroon Link coordinates activities of some 23 Community Based Organisations interacting with farmers and breeders in six (6) of Cameroon’s ten (10) regions with good community radio linkages.
Cameroon’s target audience through community radio is 20.000.000 listeners, 65% of who are peasant farmers and breeders with very low income sources. Cameroon Link has been broadcasting partner with Developing Countries Farm Radio Network known today as Farm Radio International Canada for over 20 years.
To achieve its goals, Cameroon Link organises media advocacy and social mobilisation activities, networking exchanges, capacity building trainings, conferences, symposia, seminars, information and communication campaigns in collaboration with community radio stations. On the 30th March 2004, Cameroon Link Youth for Development Association (Camlink Y4DA) was created to address gender and youth empowerment issues due to the vulnerability of the girl child at puberty age. The authorisation of Camlink Y4DA is referenced no. 0364/RDDJ/C19/BAPP of 8th April, 2004.
FRI & Cameroon Link Shared or Complementary Goals, Values, and Strategies
•Serve rural communities.
•Encourage journalistic activity that is characterized by accuracy, fairness and balance.
•Support the use of radio to ensure that knowledge is shared with the widest appropriate audience and that farmers have an opportunity for effective involvement in decision-making processes which affect them.
•Support practices, policies and technologies that promote sustainable and equitable development.
•Encourage community self-reliance and control of local development.
•Respect local cultures and the voices and decisions of farmers and their communities.
•Encourage social and economic change that is beneficial to small-scale farmers and farming families and that is gender inclusive and respectful of cultural diversity.
•Support building broadcaster capacity in production, technical, journalistic, and other skills.
The ultimate objective of this partnership is to increase the extent to which farmers in Cameroon are able to benefit from the information and communication services that are made available to them by radio. This ultimate objective will be pursued by enabling Cameroon radio broadcasters to provide listeners with more and better programming for farmers and rural communities.
To this end, the partnership will:
•Increase the number of radio broadcasters that receive Farm Radio International’s information services, including script packages and Farm Radio Weekly
•Increase the extent to which broadcasters use the resources of Farm Radio International
•Strengthen the input and feedback that comes to Farm Radio International from broadcasters related to its services, enabling FRI to improve the quality and relevance of its services
•Gather more information about how broadcasters use FRI resources and how listeners respond to the radio programs that are based on them
For more on Farm Radio International , please click on the following link – www.farmradio.org and for Cameroon Link, click on – http://cameroonlink.info

Thousands Celebrate UNESCO In Moungo

More than 70 dance groups display at the esplanade of Lenale Ndem Royal Ralace
By Martin Nkematabong
Over 4500 persons including administrative officials, tourists, legendry paramount rulers, fleets of warriors, nobles and commoners on Saturday, March 6, 2010 converged at the royal palace of H.R.H Fonjinju of Lenale Ndem to celebrate the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization's (UNESCO) newly created club at Melong, in the Moungo Division.
The Lenale Ndem UNESCO club, which was launched on 22 October 2009, has been reinforced with a magnificent museum, which currently contains 2,800 artifacts, vividly designed to portray the treasures of kings and monarchs, the myth of secret societies, the pomp of heroism, the grandeur of war and conquest and the artistic heritage of African art, music and Cameroon history.
Addressing the multitude, the assistant senior divisional officer (SDO) for Moungo, Tapca Albert, who cut the symbolic ribbon, said “Cameroon's heritage is a key component of its identity, and called on the population and public authorities to make it a moral obligation to ensure that the truth engraved about the past on stones and woods is truly safeguarded.”
He congratulated the chair of the Moungo UNESCO Club, HRH Fonjinju Tatabong Alexandre, on his relentless effort to immortalize the story of Cameroon through art galleries and monuments, intimating that the armories, masks, musical instruments, antic containers and furniture that array the esplanade of Lenale Ndem royal palace do not only vitalize the affluent culture of the country, but also give past experiences a lucid meaning.
In corroboration, Fonjinju said the museum basically aims at satisfying the quest of a hundred tourists and archaeologists who troop into his palace every summer for studies and leisure, support of children of Moungo, their families and communities in the socio-culturaI and intellectual spheres, as well as support government's effort to sustain and promote tourism in Cameroon.
The traditional ruler called on the administrative authorities and the population of the Moungo to work hand-in-glove to overcome eminent challenges facing community museums in Cameroon. The main difficulties, according to Fonjinju, include the lack of expertise to collect, conserve and preserve artworks, and inadequate finances to recruit qualified staff for effective educational services.
The esplanade of Lenale Ndem palace did serve as a veritable picaresque of the Cameroonian traditional culture. Some 22 para-mount rulers from the West, South West, north West, the Littoral and the Northern regions of Cameroon were buoyantly ushered into the ceremonial ground by hubs of warriors and fIre dancers, who charged and darted from one part of the palace to another, ripped the air with the tips of their swords and ruffled every heart with chafers of gunfire. For more click on http://camlinknews.blogspot.com and http://uk.youtube.com/camlink99/
Martin NKEMATABONG is a
Senior Socio-Cultural Journalist