Local Development and Civic Participation among local and Indigenous communities
The main aim of this project is to incite the Mbororos and the Baka Pygmies in East Cameroon out of their minority constraints by making them aware of, as well as taking full advantage of their rights, duties and inherent potentials.
Hope Foundation is striving to educate and train these groups on their rights and hw they can manage their natural resources to get out of poverty as well as involve themselves in development and income generating activities like other groups of Cameroonians.
Baka Pygmies, estimated at about 30 000 individuals occupy the rainforest regions of the East of Cameroon where they make a living out of the gifts of nature or the ecosystem. They today suffer alarming levels of poverty as many of them have over the years been made to cede their territory to logging companies without compensation, forced to settle on the edges of farming villages where they are exploited for labour.
Mbororos are nomadic cattle breeders from northern Cameroon who over the years, have been the targets of organised groups of bandits who steal their cattle. Livestock is not only the Mbororo's primary possession, but also a sign of wealth in this part of Africa. Many trade their wives and children or see them kidnapped for high ransoms. Added to them is an estimated 25,000 refugee Mbororos from the Central African Republic living in an extremely precarious situation.
These two minority groups are often discriminated by the rest of Cameroonian society, and denied rights to land, health services and education. This makes it impossible for them to develop. Therefore it is extremely rare for a Baka Pygmy in particular or a Mbororo to enter, let alone complete, primary school. This lack of formal education exacerbates the disadvantages faced by communities, leaving them open to exploitation and exclusion of the worst kind.
This project aims to promote Baka Pygmies and Mbororos communities’ confidence, through education of its leaders and young people, so that they have the skills and tools to shape their own futures and to stand up for their rights.