Mezam PDI, Officially Launched

The Mezam Peace and Development Initiative has officially been launched with an inclusive peace walk of youth led by the Divisional Representatives of Mezam within the North West Regional Assembly. About 200 youths marched from Mile 1 junction to the North West Regional Assembly and to the Governor's Office carrying messages of Peace and Development. This walk was designed to carry the message of peace to the regional administration for support and the governor upon reception of the Peace crusaders, expressed a strong desire to pay particular attention to Peace efforts in Mezam given the violence took strong roots in this division. The President of the Regional Assembly and the Governor were handed peace plants (locally known as "Nking") to symbolise collaboration in peace efforts. In an interview, The Divisional Coordinator of this Initiative, Ghejung Awunti, shared that this is not just borne from a general desire to preach Peace, these manifestations are informed decisions that were arrived at after consultations with various communities in Mezam. This divisional launch set off by a walk and 2 day seminar is set to give way for the 7 sub divisions of Mezam to carry out labour intensive projects within communities such as cleaning of palaces, gutters, road maintenance etc for the purpose of engagement in ongoing Peace talks and activities emanating from the North west Regional Assembly. Yvette Ngu, a native of Santa sub division told newsiazy that she hopes the Mezam PDI would be different in terms of strategy and execution. In her words, "you hear about so many peace projects but you don't see any work. They even tell you some of them are ongoing in your community but you cannot recall any meeting about them coming, no impact, no change. Hopefully this Mezam Peace project is different." The divisional coordinator has revealed that there will be a second phase to the Mezam PDI project which will link up to the end of this phase's sub divisional project execution.