World Humanitarian Day In Bamenda, Special Focus On Women Humanitarians.
By Raymond
Dingana
World Humanitarian Day 2019 has been commemorated with special focus
on women Humanitarians. Commemorating the day in the North West and South West
Regions of Cameroon Saturday August 17, 2019, Specialised UN Agencies and their
partners ranging from local civil society organizations to International Non
Governmental Organizations converged at the Multipurpose hall of the
Metropolitan Cathedral Big Mankon to present to the public where and how they
can be reached, why they came and what they have been doing.
With special focus on women humanitarians, one of those partners to UN
specialized Agencies that has been working with women is Plan Cameroon
especially with regards to the socio-political crises rocking the two English
speaking regions of Cameroon. Women Humanitarians working with Plan Cameroon
have been very active in providing portable water, sanitation and hygiene to
over 30,420 people in a wash cluster in the two English speaking
regions of Cameroon. The women are also providing psycho social support to some
internally displaced children by engaging them in lively hood activity
training. This is to ensure that, the children don’t continue depending on Aid
which may not come again or all the time due to the ever increasing need for aid in the regions.
Despite all these, the women Humanitarians say, they are still some
challenges to their efforts. The continues blocking of roads leading to hard
hit areas of the region needing emergency humanitarian assistance, insecurity
and the continues displacement of persons on a daily basis among others.
Mary Nyuyinui is UN Women Coordinator in the North West Region.
She says: “What the UN
women are doing in the North West is supporting women and girls affected by the
conflict in the region. We will make sure that we create a safe space for those
who have been affected by gender based violence; support them economically
because we think women most of the time are victims of gender based violence because
they depend most of the time, so we want to relief them from that
dependency by empowering them economically.
According to Mr. Tanda Theophilus of the United Nations Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, UNOCHA, their role is to ensure that,
humanitarian interventions are done in a coordinated way and has been in the
North West Region since June 2019 when the regional office was created: “The humanitarian coordination
forum brings together all the humanitarian actors intervening in the region and
this is done on a monthly basis. In addition to that, we help to make sure the
vulnerable are reached and we push for that through our advocacy, we advocate
for accountability to affected populations, we advocate for inclusion of
persons with disabilities in the humanitarian responds, we identify areas where
there are humanitarian needs, and advise those who are acting to intervene,
then we carry out joint assessment mission” .He ended
The 2019 world humanitarian day
was commemorated at a time when the two English speaking regions of the country
are facing a humanitarian crises said to be one of the fastest growing
humanitarian crises in Africa by the United Nations office for the coordination
of humanitarian assistance UNOCHA in 2018. Other UN Agencies that answered
present for the commemoration of the day were; UNDP, INTERSOS, COMINSUD,
LUKMEF, CARITAS, Unicef, UNFPA, Medicine Du Monde Swiss, Doctors Without
Borders and the Norwegian Refugee Council.
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