Canadian High Commissioner visits CHRDA Empowerment Center, commits to improving livelihoods of IDPs

By Tata Mbunwe

Canadian High Commissioner to Cameroon, H.E. Richard Bale, paid a courtesy visit to the Center for Human Rights and Democracy in Africa, CHRDA, in its Buea headquarters on Tuesday.

CHRDA President and Founder, Barrister Felix Agbor Balla, who has been using the organization to empower dozens of internally displaced English-speaking Cameroonians, received High Commissioner Bale.

CHRDA says Mr. Bale was particularly interested in the humanitarian organization and his visit “was aimed at assessing the growth of the CHRDA Empowerment Centre almost a year after it was created.”

The Canadian High Commission had donated sewing machines to the Centre in a bid to respond to the humanitarian crisis in the Northwest and Southwest Regions of Cameroon.

Apart from uplifting IDPs and giving them a livelihood, CHRDA also advocates for the respect of human rights in the context of the Anglophone crisis and other crises in Africa.

According to its founder, Barrister Agbor Balla, the Centre is working on pamphlets and books, which sensitize belligerents in the Anglophone conflict about the need to respect civilian rights.

“You may have a legitimate course for a war, but there is no justification to use illegitimate means to achieve your aim,” he said in an earlier interview.

Given that there is no human rights book produced in Cameroon to educate people on basic human rights, Barrister Balla stressed that CHRDA “will be coming up with a human rights handbook for secondary school and university students.”
The Centre, he added, is also documenting all human rights abuses perpetrated during the Anglophone conflict.