On the 27 May 2016, the P.E.A.C.E Team visited the Government High School (GHS) Limbe to have a talk with the students, and sensitize them on what Peer Exchange of African Communities for Empowerment is all about. The main aim of the visit was to sensitize the young minds about P.E.A.C.E, Capacity building, African consciousness, self reliance and educative programs.
Our visit debuted with an introduction to the General Assembly and the staffs of the school introducing P.E.A.C.E to them and our reason for coming. Further, we were permitted by the Principal of the school, Madam Ayompe Limunga Mbake to go around and distribute flyers to all the students and to the teachers. A meeting was held with the form fives students, in which we began a talk about the Organization.
Secondly, how to go about their education, making them understand how important and beneficial every subjects is and also for them to take their education very seriously. In that same light, they were asked of how many Africans leaders they knew, and names were mentioned like Nelson Mandela, Kwame Nkrumah, Muammar Gaddafi, Robert Mugabe and even our very own Head of State Paul Biya.
When the discussion became more interesting, we made mention of Bimbia to the students and asked how many of them were aware of the place? Most of them were aware of it just by name. A second question was asked if most of them have ever visited the place. It was on this note that no hand was raised up. Simply, that means to the students that Bimbia, is just a place in Limbe and they do not have detail knowledge of what really happened there.
On the topic of Bimbia, a brief introduction was made laying emphasis on it being an historic, focal point of enslaved men and women of African origin. It was further mentioned that, Bimbia was a venue of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade of the Europeans, which began from the 15th century to the 19th century and that this history needs to be critically studied. Highlighting to the students of it being the first place the Whiteman set foot on the present Cameroon shore, led by the English Baptist Missionaries Joseph Merrick, Alfred Saker and Joseph Jackson Fuller (1858). It was on this topic that a very pertinent question was asked “How important is the history of Bimbia to us Africans?”
The P.E.A.C.E team responded that Bimbia is very important to us because it was the place where thousands of our Ancestors and Ancestresses were detached from their land, from where loved ones and family were deport to the Americas by the Whiteman. For them, It is called the place of no return. Europeans assembled kidnapped Africans there at Bimbia for transportation and later sold or used to work as slaves for the Whiteman.
Due to limited time accorded to us by the Principal of the School, we had to end our discussion and visit with the students since it was the last day of the academic year and many were in a haste to attend revision classes. We solicited with the Principal of the school, if we can still be granted another opportunity to visit the school in the next academic year and our request was granted.
Report compiled by Beyang Verdell, for PEACE.
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