Dear HIFA friends and colleagues ,
In 2021 Deserve, a youth-led non governmental organization in collaboration with the HIFA co-organized the First National training on adolescent health and wellbeing in Yaounde, Cameroon. The training mobilized young people from nine regions of Cameroon. It saw the participation of representative officials from the Ministry of Youths and Civic Education and the Ministry of Social Affairs. The training was on the Advocating for change for adolescents toolkit in Cameroon an adaptation of a toolkit published by WHO and PMNCH in 2018. The toolkit "was created by young people for young people, to lead and influence change in their communities as well as to hold governments accountable for delivering on their commitments to prioritize adolescents’ health and well-being. The toolkit provides youth-led and youth-serving organizations with the resources and strategies they need to become effective champions and advocates".
Advocating for change for adolescents in Cameroon ! A practical toolkit for young people to advocate for improved adolescent health and wellbeing (ACAP toolkit) since 2018 has been greatly enriched by elements pertaining to changing contexts which affected the lives of young people such as the COVID19. The 113 pages document then proved to be a reference guide in the area of meaningful engagement for young cameroonians. Six years later the ACAP tool kit was officially endorsed by the Minister of Youths and Civic Education Mr Mounouna Foutsou.
I am delighted and excited to share with you that on the 28th December will be held the Second training on the ACAP toolkit which is a 134 pages document. A new document tailored to the needs of Cameroonian adolescents and young people. My colleagues and I worked for several years to provide comprehensive content reflecting what young people in Cameroon should know to advocate for their health and mental health. Like in the first training, I will be training young people on: Understanding Adolescent Health and wellbeing in Cameroon and Policies that Back-up Action and Developing and effective advocacy road map. In addition, I will be sharing my experience in youth mental health advocacy in Cameroon with the Buea Youth Mental Health Declaration.
Cameroon's population like most African countries is young therefore the need for young people and adolescents to be equipped to take care of their health and to engage their government to take care of their health taking into account their needs I hope will contribute to promote more health and wellbeing. There is still a lot to do in the training processes necessary to enable the knowledge contained in the toolkit to be vulgarised to as many young people as possible. This is important to reduce the gap in the access to healthcare information and availability of healthcare information in Cameroon for young people and adolescents.
For more information about the toolkits and the second national training please click: https://deserve-intl.org/
Warm regards,
Didier Demassosso
HIFA Country Representative Coordinator Afro Region
HIFA country Representative for Cameroon
HIFA profile: Didier Demassosso is a mental health practitioner, Consultant (WHO , MoPH Cameroon...), Mental health advocate , Youth advocate with 10 years experience in mental health development in Cameroon. He is also a health communicator and educationist. HIFA Country Representative For Cameroon/ HIFA Country Representative of the year 2014 / Regional Coordinator for Africa. He also currently volunteers for the Mental Health Innovation Network Africa as Knowledge Exchange Assistant. http://www.hifa.org/people/country-representatives/map http://www.hifa.org/support/members/didier Email: didier.demassosso AT gmail.com
