A Common Future Film and Arts Festival (Third Edition) Bamenda-Cameroon

Press Release

The Bamenda Film and Arts Festival will run from July 15-22, 2013 in selected halls and cafes at the Bamenda municipality. The festival which is in its 3rd edition seeks to articulate local, national and international issues through film and arts. It is a lineup of the most sort after box office films in Cameroon and abroad that clearly address related issues like governance, trafficking, the respect of human dignity, discrimination and above all, respect of international conventions and protocols. Being about the only film festival in this part of the country, the Bamenda event, which is the 3rd edition, promises to be an awareness raising medium par excellence.
Through arts, the festival shall gather over 100 students to participate in shinning the light on human rights and their drawings shall later be displayed at a gallery on a university campus throughout the festival period. Through this, students shall be brought to promote, defend, and raise awareness on human rights issues in Cameroon, especially that of upholding the rights of women, girls, children, disabled persons, refugees, prisoners and immigrants. It shall also shine the light on rape and sexual assault in the school milieu. This festival uses arts and film as a creative tool to disseminate knowledge and to influence public opinion on human rights issues. The festival shall screen some 30 selected films which each address the concerns of humanity and range from violence against women through non-discrimination to the upholding of human dignity in all its forms. The arts festival shall complement the film screenings as it seeks to ignite and instill the culture of human rights in the youth, especially in the school milieu as schools are at the centre of every community. The Bamenda festival reaches out to the audience as most of the screenings shall be on various community halls, cafes and university centre in the Bamenda municipality. Each screening shall be followed by a panel discussion and questions and answers from the audience on salient points. Another novelty this year shall be the organization of parallel conferences in halls in Bamenda on issues like ‘access to information by journalists, domestic violence, the domestication of international protocols and conventions and more importantly, the rights of human rights defenders’. These conferences shall be organized in partnership with the Yaoundé-based United Nations Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in Central Africa and other Bamenda-based NGOs already working in the domain. .
The objectives of the festival are to improve the quality of Human Rights awareness and knowledge among the population of the Northwest Region. It shall also promote the core values of the International community’s human rights principles of a world free of discrimination, conflict and human rights violations through film festivals. The festival aims to encourage many more Cameroonian film makers and producers to inculcate human rights as key themes in the development of their films as an efficient and effective communicative vehicle in human rights education and sensitization. The primary target is the common man in the street that has hardly had an opportunity to receive human rights education, talk less of understanding the essence of the very first principle of human rights that ‘all human beings are born free and equal in rights and dignity.’ The festival would enable human rights education and sensitization to for once, leave the cozy confines of conference halls into the much flexible entertainment medium. The secondary audience would be the NGOs and Civil Society activists and film makers who are called upon to step up their activities as the festival seeks to celebrate the work they have done in the past. Some of the films to screened at this year’s festival are:
Forgotten Europeans (threats discrimination),
. Integrating people of African decent in Bolivian society ( also treats discrimination),
. Human Rights defenders Speak up to end discrimination (Human rights defenders),
. Giving voice to the victims and survivors of trafficking (trafficking in persons),
. Sierra Leone: Ensuring equal opportunities for persons with disabilities. ( disabilities,
‘Secrets and Doubts’ from Serbia, ‘La premiere fois’ and ‘L’Histoire de Nelie’, films on rape by the Cameroonian producer, Dieudonne Nana, films on children’s rights like ‘Les enfants esclaves from Benin, Les inseparables, Anna, Bazil et le trafiquant, Le travail d’intérêt général en Afrique, films on gender equity like Fanta, Lani, Agnikè, Les maux du silence, films on domestic violence and HIV/AIDS like ‘Le mariage, Rythmes d’amitié, ‘Dans la peau d'une mere’, ‘Breaking out of the man box’, ‘widows at war, ‘rape and incest’, ‘The Will’, Tears from an Angel’, ‘Wild Life Palvar’ etc, etc. This highly mediatized event shall end with a mobile press conference that would take media practitioners on a ride around the region as they digest succinct information on human rights that had suffered from apathy in mainstream media in the past few years.

Gwain Colbert Fulai
Co-Founder: A Common Future

Tuesday, 25 June 2013

Bamenda, the Citadel of Modern Education

Bamenda, the citadel of Modern Education


St. Louis Medical Institute B'da
When the learned Professor Emeritus Bernard Fonlon was ridiculed by a contemporary because he did not have houses like his friends, he answered: “You build houses, but I build men”.
            The learned philosopher’s reply sums up the whole value of education. Every sensible human being knows that the best assets a parent can give their offspring is a sound education. Educating a child is putting up sky scrapers in his mind.
            If there is any species of Cameroonian, who upholds this lofty principle, it is the Bamenda man. The North West parent would rather eat food without oil, or move about in rags than allow their child to stay at home. This further explains why the Parent Teacher Association, PTA, puts up infrastructure in schools and even employs and pays auxiliary staff.
            But a greater proof of a Bamenda man’s attachment to education is the number of private higher institutions in Bamenda. There is the Bamenda University of Science and Technology, BUST, which is graduating students up to the Masters Degree. Some of these students come from neighboring Nigeria and Equatorial Guinea. Then there is the National Polytechnic in Bambui, of one multi-talented Bobe Francis Young. National Polytechnique Bambui has graduated students in various useful disciplines including Journalism and Computer Science. Like BUST, it has numerous students from Equatorial Guinea. There is also FANAB, of Dr. Peter Fonche, a science researcher. Recently, the Catholic and Presbyterian Churches also heeded the call for quality education by creating two Universities. These are: The Catholic University, with campus in Nkwen; and the Christian University with campus in Bali. Bambili has the ENS, First and Second Cycles, as well as the Higher Teachers; Technical College. Despite the existence of these institutions of higher learning.
            At the level of academic performance, the North West is exemplary. The best results at the GCE, as well as in technical education, are usually produced by the North West. Students from other Regions, who do not perform well or think they could do better, travel to study in the North West because of the conducive academic environment. Discipline and moral education are values which have inspired parents in most parts of Cameroon to send their children to study in the North West. Schools like Sacred Heart College Mankon, St. Bebe’s College Ashing, Our Lady of Lourdes and P.S.S. Mankon are models. The quality of education in the North West is enhanced by the activities of the Cameroon Teacher’s Trade Union, CATTU. The most dynamic Teachers Trade Union in Cameroon, CATTU has its headquarters in Bamenda and is headed by the fearless, no-nonsense Simon Nkwenti

No comments:

Post a Comment