The Belo Council during summer holidays has always taken all actions to make sure it’s youths remain focus and don’t get involved into harmful practices by organising holiday championships within the municipality to help the youths be usefully engage, scout talents and promote sports and culture. The crisis has made things extremely difficult for the council to successful uphold to this tradition but however, within the Mandate of Mayor Ngong Innocent, he had promise to give a listening ear to the youths by always supporting any initiative that will make Belo Great again. The Badu Football and Cultural festival 1st edition was submitted to him by a cluster of Belo youths which the council did not hesitate to support such an initiative as it has to enhance the social cohesion of internally displaced persons from Belo residing in Bamenda with their host communities through football , and indigenous games.
The Belo people living in Bamenda have been out of their comfort zones for close to 4 years due to the crisis but have successfully integrated themselves within their host communities despite the differences in culture and are living in peace with their brothers , it was thus normal to support this initiative that seeks to highlight the connectors , similarities we share in common than portraying our differences for a peaceful coexistence. It’s at this point we wish to sincerely thank the Nkwen population, Mankon people, Bambui, Bambili, Mendanken people and any other group of persons hosting our population in their homes during this trying moments. The youths of our municipality is a force we reckon with reason why they hold a strong position in the council development plan as we continue looking for funds to kick start the first phase of the construction of the Belo Council Sports Complex.
For all the teams taking part in the festival, we wish them all the luck and let the best be the the winner while spreading across the spirit of tolerance, team work and fair play.
