Better World Cafe in Yaounde, Cameroon

Better World Café in Yaounde, Cameroon.
“Linking Up Africa through the Power of Community”
Better World Cameroon (BWC) wants to let the voice of Africa to be heard on Open World Cafe Stockholm. This is part of a comprehensive programme for youth employment Joshua Konkankoh, National Coordinator of BWC has been putting in place in Yaounde the capital city of Cameroon since 1996 aimed at reconnecting young people to the land.
In 1996, he purchased a five acre plot of marshland on the outskirts of Yaounde. This forgotten wasteland has since been transformed into the Ndanifor Youth Community Garden- a local sanctuary and a catalyst for positive change. This pilot phase of the project has been able to support itself but at the moment popular demand has made it necessary to scale up the project to international level.
The new component of Digital Green “Better World Café he intends to set up will be used to research and investigate into the role and sustainability of organic gardening as a source of livelihood for youth, agricultural production, food security, environmental restoration and ICT training for small business development for unemployed youth.
He will also use Audio-Visual material produced in the IT suit to introduce Environmental Education in schools (Operation Green Schools already under way).
He envisions a Better World where traditional African respect for the land helps create sustainable employment among socially disadvantaged groups.
The information revolution has completely bypassed 8 million young people in Cameroon. They are the urban and rural poor who constitute 75 percent of the population living on less than one dollar a day.
They need constantly up-dated information on everything from new farming methods and development education. This forgotten mass of rural and urban poor and their youth associations could make effective use of the world’s resources of knowledge and information if they had access to them. Their communities also have a wealth of local agriculture and conservation knowledge to contribute.
Joshua is putting up this small link up Africa Project of bridging the digital divide to enhance the role of knowledge exchange and access to information in combating hunger, poverty and mitigating climate change.
Through this project young people will be able to obtain up-to-date agricultural and development information from the internet
and scientific journal websites without paying prohibitive charges - an aid to their work on increasing agricultural production and sustainable development.
We already have a multipurpose garden pavilion of 60m2 which we want to expand into the new plan below to house the project. A school in Newcastle in the U K has promised to donate computers, but we will have to provide the secure building and an internet connection. There is a reserved area for a care taker. The total cost of the project = £11,766 of this BWC will produce £2,666 from flower sales in the course of the year. Potential funders can contact us for more information: foundation@betterworld-cameroon.com
We would like to collect funds through our registered charity in the Britain; Ndanifor Gardens UK Trust charity registration No.1117878. Link person Mr. Robert Simpson: rf.simpson@talk21.com
My appeal to OpenWorld Cafe is to support our intiative for Linking up Africa to help give it scope and focus in getting the voice of youths out of the remotest villages.