Visionary Reports

Mboumien Sally Maforchi is a trail blazer in peace building.

With the upsurge of the Anglophone crisis Mboumien Sally Maforchi has proven her worth in ensuring that peace return in the two troubled regions.Under the umbrella of the South West North West Women Task Force, (SNWOT) Mboumien Sally Maforchi and her peers lobbied women to come out and use the nonviolent approach to communicate the urgency for dialogue.

 As the North West coordinator of SNWOT, Mboumien Sally Maforchi had the opportunity to lobby government and the international community, as well as the Non-State Armed Groups towards a return to normalcy. Through radio programmes on peace to one-on-one peace discussions, Sally has taken the peace effort to a whole new level.

The peace builder has been putting to use the knowledge sharpened through crash programmes on mediation in times of crisis. She has benefited from the social media space through which she continues to articulate on issues of peace and peace building.

It has not been an easy ride for Sally given that peace builders are often caught between warring parties. Because they work on the principles of neutrality, impartiality and independence, their identity is often mistaken as that of an opposition. But preaching the gospel of love and compassion for humanity has always done her the magic.

She agrees that it is a difficult for women to assume leadership position, given that they have to break stereotypes. The Cameroonian society is one often taken by surprise when women emerge as leading voices. This accounts for why women like her have had attacks on their personality and dignity. But to her, staying focus and being relevant has made her brand her peace message to the admiration of many.

 She disclosed that “the best part of my life is the sacrifice, the ability and the opportunity to be a peace builder in times of armed conflict”  She says her dream and ambition is  to see women come on board and take up leadership positions in areas believed to be reserved for men. She added that women are usually the most affected and should be able to take charge of their collective destinies”.

 She developed interest in peace building when the Bali-Bawock crisis erupted in March 2007. A native from Bawock, her mother hails from Bali Nyonga. With this  affiliation to  the two warring fraction she felt the burden weighing on her shoulders and had to put her trouble shooting skills to test. In the heart of the crisis she did her best to convinced people to  bury their hatchet and love  one another. “It was at this point that I discovered there was power in peace building,” she said.

 With the outbreak of the crisis in Cameroon’s North West and South West Regions, Mboumien Sally Maforchi intensified  her peace building efforts. She later on joined the South West North West Women’s Task Force to broker for peace. She started off as the assistant Regional Coordinator for North West and oversaw the organization of the first lamentation campaign.

At 39, Mboumien Sally Maforchi   could be described as a fighter, who had to fight the dominance of her five male siblings to survive. The fighting spirit later turned out to be the base of her life as an activist and advocate.”  Married with four kids, she believes in change, determination, and discipline

Her goal is also  to uphold the sexual and reproductive health rights of women and girls for as she puts it, “if women and girls do not have autonomy to their sexual and reproductive rights, they won’t be able to develop their full potentials.” She believes that women have to be well educated, economically and politically empowered to stand the challenge of time. She has thus been a champion for women’s rights to freedom of expression and social inclusion. In her words, “I aspire to see a society where women take up every space of decision-making, policymaking and decide for themselves. Women should be able to design, implement and evaluate policies for society. They should be able to have the power of the pen and make political decisions,”

 Common Action For Gender Development    

In 2016, Sally decided to create her own organization called Common Action for Gender Development, COMAGEND, which seeks to uphold women’s sexual and reproductive health rights.  She holds that women don’t develop their full potentials because of poor management of their sexuality. It is for this reason that she has been running the Empower Me Don’t Blame Me campaign aimed at bringing every stakeholder on board to discuss issues of sexuality which is a taboo subject in almost every household or community. This campaign has taken her to many communities within Cameroon. As facilitator in no fewer than 15 workshops within the framework of the “Empower Me, Don’t Blame Me” campaign, she worked with other organizations to make the voice of the girl child and woman louder. She has mentored young women leaders, molding many others to be able to come out and take leadership roles.

Every Girl For Any Girl Initiative, My Sister My Friend Project

As a girl child Sally had a normal life. She took her education seriously and is today pursuing a PhD. She had a painful experience as a teenager that almost destroyed her life. “At the age of 17, I had a crude illegal abortion at the backside of a drugstore which almost cost my life.” She narrated. This act which was not uncommon among her peers has now become the foundation of her life as a social advocate for women’s sexual and reproductive health rights and full participation of women in political decision making. As result, she started reaching out to adolescent girls and young women on issues of their sexuality as far back as 2004 when she joined the teaching corps in Cameroon. She worked as mentor in girls’ leadership clubs and other women social groups. This service to women and girls proved insufficient as women and girls continued to be victims as they made tons of uninformed decisions regarding their sexuality.

The life she has chosen as a community change maker has sure given her many opportunities to serve humanity. From her humble beginnings as Impact Leader for World Pulse, Sally would later become World Pulse Ambassador, a free online platform where women tell their stories and support each other.

 With her cleanly shaved shinny head she drives herself from Bamenda to Yaoundé and to other regions just to catch-up with appointments.