The Humanitarian arm of the Catholic Church in the Diocese of Buea, CARITAS Buea, has trained some 300 persons across the Diocese to tackle food insecurity.
This was during the CARITAS Fourth Diocesan Seminar, which was placed under the patronage of the Apostolic Administrator of the Buea Diocese, Mgr. Bishop Michael Bibi.
The event, which was aimed at reducing food insecurity in the Diocese of Buea, held on Saturday, September 5 at St. Charles Lwanga Parish Hall Buea.
During the seminar, participants were drilled on home gardening, poultry management, and marketing strategies among others.
The seminar highlighted numerous issues from CARITAS departments of Care of the Disable and Marginalised; Sustainable Architecture and Rural Development Projects and the Justice and Peace Commission.
Speaking at the event, the Director of CARITAS Buea, Pierre Ernest Tchinda, said the participants have been trained to go out and train others on best practices.
To Bishop Bibi, the seminar was aimed at helping Catholic Christians and people of goodwill working with the Catholic administration to sustain themselves locally.
“The fact that God has blessed us with fertile land, it is important to train participants to know how they can make good use of the talent that God has given them,” he said.
The Prelate prayed that all the participants would gain concrete knowledge from the seminar to be able to sustain themselves.
To him, if the participants engage in something meaningful, the issue of food insecurity will be a problem of the past.
“It is my prayer and wish, therefore, that, at the end of this seminar, we will be able to be more involved and more engaged in all our parishes and see how we can help one another so that we grow and have food that will be able to sustain us, sustain our brothers and sisters and also give us the necessary income that we need,” Bishop Bibi said.
In the course of the training, CARITAS Director explained that CARITAS is running a set of projects, among which are the production of eggs, broilers and crops.
“These projects will go a long way to improve the livelihood of many, even though statistics have shown that production has reduced because of the prevailing Anglophone Crisis in Northwest and Southwest Regions.”
The Fourth CARITAS Diocesan Seminar was placed under the theme: “Reducing food insecurity amongst communities in the Diocese of Buea through poultry management and Gardening as sustainable livelihood activities.”
