By Lizette Che

The Africa Young Leaders Summit was really an eye opener for me and it helped me and my mission area. I am the Youth Director for the Cameroon Mission Initiative of the United Methodist Church and I was blessed to attend the Africa Young Leader Summit in 2016. It was held in Kinshasa, DR Congo. The Summit had the theme “Africa Young Leaders as Agents of Peace and Change” and brought together young people from Cameroon, Congo, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Zambia, Tanzania, Malawi, Nigeria, Burundi, Angola, Zimbabwe, and other annual conferences of the United Methodist Church in Africa.

During this summit, we listened to lectures and participated in workshops on various topics such as Young People’s Leadership in the United Methodist Church, a Conversation on Sexuality, Visioning (looking at the future of the church), Program Planning and Implementation, Leaders and Leadership, Young People Today. We also explored the different challenges faced by young people such as environmental issues, media and technology, poverty, HIV/AIDS, child labor, gender inequality, conflict, the role of young people in fostering peace and sustainable development, and the advantages and disadvantages of the internet.

Thanks to the lessons I learned, I was able to organize seminars and workshops to share these lessons with the young people in my mission area. We explored the different ways that we can contribute to the growth of our church and society, as well as young people’s role in promoting peace and change in our communities.

In Cameroon, we had seminars on entrepreneurship, Leaders and Leadership, project conception and programing. As a result of this, we now have young people who are more engaged in the activities of the church and are willing to contribute to the growth of the young people’s association. Some of these young people also started projects that generate income because they received training on entrepreneurship and they learned how to produce homemade commodities such as liquid soap, cocoa butter oil, chocolate, javel, yoghurt etc.

My participation at the 2016 Africa Young Leaders Summit in Kinshasa, Congo helped me and the young people in my mission area see things differently.