Youths are future of our culture- Mr and Miss Mankon elect

By Shanta Sih

Mankon is one of the biggest major clans in the Northwest region of Cameroon with Fon Angwafor IV as the traditional custodian. The people of Makon on Thursday, February 09, 2023, rallied young people from all over the clan to partake in different cultural activities with the primary motive of making sure the youths can speak the Mankon language with ease and can respect their culture amidst the changes happening in the world.

This competition was organized by Mrs. Che Agnes a die heart Mankon daughter running a Non-Governmental Organization institution promoting youth employment in the Northwest region of the country.

Che Agnes said her wish is that the elected representatives stand as role models to others by standing as a challenge to those youths who cannot speak their dialect, push them to learn their culture, and be proud of where they come from no matter where they are in the world.

“We organized this event so that we can push our culture and make it competitive with other villages, villages, nations, and why not the world spreading our culture! We took first the ability to speak our language fluently as one of our strongest qualities. We also intend to use this to show we want peace and stability in Mankon and Bamenda as a whole,” she said.

“The young people are the only generation that can pass on the message of our culture to the children younger and the unborn and also we organized this in order to teach them the way of agriculture in a world where government employment is difficult so they can be self-employed. We noticed that most cultures are dying and most of our children now copy the ways of the western world through television series. Most young people can hardly speak their dialect or even know exactly their traditional origin. This is one of the strongest reasons that pushed us to help our children not forget that we are Africans and not westerners and we preserve our culture and tradition just like our fathers and grandparents did” assistant organizer Mrs. Awah Siberia told reporters.

The young representatives are eager to start spreading the word ” I am so happy for this opportunity given to me as Mr. Mankon and I promise to do my best in pushing our culture to the ends of the earth. Youths depend solely on school and government employment forgetting that without agriculture we cannot even eat” the new Mr. Mankon said.

” Our parents are growing old and dying so we are left to either kill our culture or preserve it for our children tomorrow and teach them our tradition, their roots and not get consumed with the western culture from social media and tv programs” Miss. Mankon said,

Other towns and villages have been encouraged to spread their language and culture to the world by organizing similar events.