Message from LVE Guinea
Like associate partners and ALIVE focal points in other countries in the world, Guinea, through the NGO "Club Avenir des Enfants de Guinée, CAVEG" (Club for the future of the children of Guinea): as an associate, Living Values "‹"‹Guinea wants to carry out at least two or three concrete activities each year, setting as its main objective the promotion of the 12 Living Values - "‹"‹through educational, cultural and sports activities for students and teachers, children in difficult circumstances, adults, and other vulnerable groups.
Guinea today is a country where the greatest concern of the populations is the search for daily food, which often makes it difficult to organise events because of the unreliability of available resources needed to fully play its role as an ALIVE partner.
In spite of this situation, the official national launch of the Living Values "‹"‹Guinea programme in October 2017 at the Blue Zone of Kaloum in Conakry elicited a very positive and enthusiastic reaction towards living values from teachers who would like to participate, the public and private press, and the general public, enthusiasm.
On the wave of this enthusiastic response, the Living Values "‹"‹Guinea team met in March 2018 at the Guinean National Literacy Directorate in Conakry, to develop a schedule of activities to be carried out.
Unfortunately, the 2018-2019 school year was disrupted by an eight-month strike by the teachers' union demanding a rise in salaries. Then, in 2019, Guinea experienced a local election and a referendum characterized by violent clashes, arrests, killings, all this has happening due to a change of officials at the level of the school partners with whom we work and due to reforms, which have caused enormous obstacles to all activities.
According to our planned schedule, a meeting of the LVE team was to be held in April 2019, outside the capital, Conakry, 450 km away, in the prefecture of Pita, and we were to reach out to four primary schools. However, already in March 2019 political campaigns were starting to take place in the country, and since most of the team members are civil society actors, involved in politics, there was no meeting.
It was in March 2020 that all activities in the country were stopped by the COVID19 pandemic - and even today lockdown has not completely ended and the state of emergency still remains.
As part of the response against COVID-19, the Guinean government, through its National Health Security Agency, benefited from several technical and material supports from a number of civil society organizations and partners in the field.
In this context, the Living Values "‹"‹Guinea team, made up of members of national civil society organizations and the press, met on May 20, 2020 at the headquarters of CAVEG in Conakry, with the aim of to be able to implement an activity. Aware that women and children are the most vulnerable groups in crises, and because of violence against women, the team set up the 'Club des Filles et Femmes Living Values' Guinea, (Living Values Guinea Club for Girls and Women') which aims to sensitize populations on the importance of living values "‹"‹before, during and after crises. Because of the post-election violence of 2019-2020, the Club could not function.
Please note that Living Values "‹"‹Guinea is more determined to relaunch itself in 2021 through a new strategy which consists of involving more people and the use of social networks, with innovative reforms, hand in hand with Living Values "‹"‹Africa, while drawing inspiration from the recent speech by the President of ALIVE to all ALIVE associates, focal points and members around the world, concerning his wish for the year 2021, that we salute with great hope and courage, to be able to meet the challenge that ALIVE sets for itself.
To conclude, we must recognize that the years 2019-2020 have not offered stability and peace to the population, nor to the members of our team. Nevertheless, we remain very motivated and determined to continue promoting the living values of LVE, and we will seek the technical, material and financial support that will allow Living Values Guinea to stand out and occupy a significant place on the national and international level.
Thank you. My sincerest regards.
Yombouno Abdel Tiekoura, Member of Living Values Guinée
President, NGO CAVEG / Associate of ALIVE - Conakry. Guinea, 1 December 2020.