NEED FOR EMPOWERING THE FAMILY FOR DEVELOPMENT IN MBEMBE
Coordinator of Community Education and Development Services (CEDS) Bamenda
On the occasion of the “WHITHER MBEMBE; WHITHER AKO SUB-DIVISION?”
Mbembe Elite Meeting held at Tiko on 12/08/2017.
Introduction
The family as the basic unit of all communities big and small needs a favorable environment for proper functioning, support and development. If we look at mbembe in general, we have a lot to do to develop both our families and their environment. To be successful, we need to harness our strengths and minimize our weaknesses.
The contemporary situation
For strengths:
We appreciate the village development associations and the efforts they are making to improve the welfare and livelihood of our people.
We speak our mother tongue
The spirit of fighting, especially in public is reducing.
A few farmers are catching up on the cultivation of other cash crops like cocoa, coffee and improved pal; species in addition to the natural palms.
More children are being sent to school but some villages do not have children in secondary schools yet.
Our weaknesses dwarf the successes in terms of numbers and the extent to which they are manifested or practiced.
| 1 | Young people are dying at alarming rates but our chiefs do not seem to be concerned about redressing the issue yet |
| 2 | There is generalized and infectious inter-village hatred. |
| 3 | Female education is notorious for excessively high levels of teenage pregnancies leading to drop out from school |
| 4 | There is high level of neglect of children born in and out of wedlock. |
| 5 | Drunkenness from excessive consumption of crude whiskies and beers |
| 6 | Rampant adultery by men and women and fornication by boys and girls |
| 7 | Arbitrary increases in bride price and the degrading ‘sale’ of women for a ‘deposit’ value that make it difficult for girls to marry |
| 8 | Many people have not built toilets. The damaging effects on health and sanitation are uncountable. |
| 9 | Many villagers have not accepted Christ and vices like witchcraft, superstition-a non-scientific world-view ridden with taboos, jealousy, and immorality…the list is endless! Which are manifestations of lack of Christian ethical living abound. |
| 10 | Too many young people are engaged in reckless polygamous life that is harmful to family health and growth. By the time a young man or woman reaches the age of 35years old in Mbembe, he/she would have married averagely about five times. Usually some of the marriages produce children who are abandoned to the family of the young man or that of the woman as they move on to other marriages. |
| 11 | Institutionalized polygamy serves as modern slavery. The women are regarded as work horses who are supposed to work for their husband-masters to squander on drinking and more women. The women have inappropriately responded by competing in alcoholism and adultery. The family now has become a war zone in which the husband and wife-elephants fight while the children have become the grass that is trampled upon. |
In another scenario, the husband- masters deliberately keep their wife-slaves down by battering wife and closely spaced children who are malnourished, in poor health and often
die. For a slave master to keep the slave down he must hold the slave down himself; thus the master is pinned down. Consequently, the slave master is also enslaved: the slave master is
much a slave as the slave(s). Thus wide-spread polygamy, especially among mbembe young people is a process of mutual enslavement. The price is perpetuation of underdevelopment.
The list of weaknesses is long (cultural strong holds/bottlenecks e.g. status of women, matrimony/patrimony-how families to which children born to “couples” are determined,
embezzlement/misappropriation of village development and other funds, traditional system of land tenure, illiteracy…)The challenges are enormous but let us move on.
How can the family in mbembe be strengthened?
From our foregoing discussion, it is obvious that decent family life is in danger of extinction in mbembe. It is this despicable family life situation in mbembe that is responsible for our slow
development and the generalized malaise that any moral person feels in mbembe land or about mbembe people.
Redressing this situation requires multi-dimensional action from many fronts that must engage:
o Individuals(mbembe and non-mbembe)
o Village development associations
o Traditional leaders
o Churches
o Schools
o Local government administrators
o Mbembe elite etc.
Family strengthening
It is necessary for these groups to not only undertake to determine, genuinely and meticulously play their respective roles in empowering families, but to work in synergy. Successful team work requires integrity and trust from team members.
At the individual level
I challenge the mbembe elite to imbue one another and members of our communities with the knowledge and skills that will encourage individual development and growth. This will succeed if we stop paying lip service and commit ourselves to a positive attitudinal change in our lifestyles, work habits; relational matters- especially with the opposite sex etc. and make these changes perennial.
At the other levels
There is need for a participatory diagnosis of the problem to determine the several and joint interventions required from the various stakeholders of development in mbembe.
At the family level
When individual members of the mbembe family learn to communicate with love, tenderness, share responsibilities, build mutual confidence… and this requires the intervention of everyone, families will grow and the mbembe communities with them. In good family governance, the family members decide only on issues which are commonplace and over which they have control and which fall within their scope. In this light, the scope of the kind of decisions that family members will be able to raise their voices, in a safe and respected environment
to create an impact will include:
o Existing obnoxious treatment of some family members;
o Social structures that influence relationships within the family e.g. with regard to gender inequality, marital abuse or child abuse as well as discriminatory gender roles;
o Formulating responses that are both attentive to individual relationships and broader social
structures within the family circle;
o Impact of issues of social justice and injustice in the families;
o Current challenges to the family;
o Promoting the development of stable family life;
o Developing deeper respect and better understanding between men and women within the
family circle, particularly in the area of decision-making
It is obvious that parents need education and encouragement to meet their responsibilities to each other and to their children within the family circle. How shall we achieve this and more?
We need to brainstorm and come up with concrete actions to take that will engage all stakeholders.
Proposals
Our chiefs should to be strong and just, unite their subjects and respect themselves.
Villages need to be united for development and progress.
Markets holding on Sundays should be discouraged.
Mbembe people need to diversify the food crops they cultivate to include cocoyams, plantains, bananas, yams etc. to larger extents than is currently the case.
Our council and the powers that be need to provide potable water, electricity and good
roads. These are basic factors in development.
Every village in mbembe should pursue education for all their children.
Every household should compulsorily build a latrine/toilet.
Drinking in mbembe should be moderated and drinking of crude liquor banned.
Allow our youths, especially the girls to reach majority before marriage
Reduce bride price and discard the idea of deposit. It is demeaning for the girls and reduces
them to goods that are rented out on payment of a deposit.
Mbembe men should endevour to educate their wives who do not have enough schooling.
Recognize polygamy as modern slavery especially when engaged by people of low economic
strength.
Gender equality—promoting the equal participation of women and men in making decisions; supporting women and girls so that they can fully exercise their rights; and reducing the gap between women’s and men’s access to and control of resources and the benefits of development—is still out of reach for most women in mbembe. Women continue to have fewer rights, lower education and health status, less real income, and less access to resources and decision-making than men. Nevertheless, women’s critical roles in food production, income generation, management of natural resources, community organization and domestic responsibilities are essential for sustainable development and depends on family stability for improvement.
If equitable and sustainable progress is to be achieved, women’s status must be improved, their rights must be respected, and their contributions must be recognized.
Follow up awaited from MBELA!!!! Thanks.