Christopher Jator Njechu
3 April 2008
The British Council in Yaounde has reaffirmed its determination to empower Cameroonian youths in management and leadership through sports, culture and arts activities code-named Dreams and Teams, D+T.
The activities which rallied 20 students from Government Bilingual High Schools Essos in Yaounde and Ebolowa took place at the esplanade of the former from Tuesday March 25 to Friday 28.
The event gave the young leaders an opportunity to apply their skills and practically implement their plans and theory of the training through the festival.Friday's activities marked the end of the D+T, local tutor training and young leader training in Cameroon organised by the British Council and facilitated by an international lead trainer and consultant from the UK, Deborah Ball.
The aim of the event was to develop young leaders and global citizens through sports and cross-cultural awareness.According to Emmanuel Ngungoh, head of projects and services at the British Council, the event which was concurrently running in Bamenda where some students of GBHS and Longla Comprehensive College participated was equally taking place in more than forty countries.
"It creates an opportunity for young people to be constantly challenged in their behaviour relating to sports and arts, leadership and cross-cultural awareness," he said.During the event, the public had the opportunity to interact with participants to acquire more insights about this great idea and observed a colourful activity run entirely by young people, for their mates and schools or communities.
The activities were grouped into sports, culture and arts.In sports, male students showcased 'clacker' which is a sport believed to be practised only by girls as a show of the fact that men too, could be empowered to do same and even better.
There were others like pick-and-up and jumping which involved keeping the young people fit and leisurely. Meanwhile, the cultural aspect was a colourful display of both traditional and Western dances, drawing and story telling on Cameroon and Western cultures.
Given the competitive nature of the games, those who won were given prizes of books, pens and pencils by the Director of the British Council, Paul Norton, who presided at the launching of the festival.
A participant and student of GBHS Ebolowa, 17-year-old Alfred Mbourou, who was overall management of the event, told The Post that he would be going back to Ebolowa with a wealth of knowledge.
He said he was trained to organise festivals, manage a team and how to assign roles.
"The training, the role play and festival proper has empowered me so much so that I would not miss creating a D+T Club in my school and this is an important resolve that we are leaving with; to organise such activities again with our local primary schools. I am happy being chosen from Lower Sixth," Mbourou said.
Meanwhile, it was revealed that a UK-based sports school, Oak Bank, will soon be visiting the country within the framework of interacting with local students to promote sports and culture.
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