PCC Peace Award: Achaleke Christian Wins In Youth Category

 

Compiled By Ndassi Gilbert

The Executive Director of Local Youth Corner, Achaleke Christian Leke ,was conferred the Title of Peace Youth of the Year in a ceremony that took place at the Synod Office hall in Buea last Wednesday October 13.

He is a is a peacebuilding, counter violent extremism and international development expert from Cameroon with 14 years of experience as a practitioner and academician.  He holds an MSc in Conflict Security and Development from the University of Birmingham UK.

His passion for peace was inspired by his childhood of growing up in Fiango Kumba which was known for crime and violence. The realities of violence drove him to the determination to build violent free communities with young people at the forefront.

Achaleke Christian Leke currently serves as the Executive Director of Local Youth Corner Cameroon; a youth-led peace-building organization based in Cameroon.

He grew up in the organisation as a volunteer and served in different role from assistant to National Coordinator and most recently Executive.

Christian transformed this organisation from no paid staff after he took leadership in 2014 to  23 paid staff and expanding coverage of the office to the 10 regions of Cameroon with 4 physical offices in the conflict hotspots of Cameroon.

The 2021 Youth for  Peace award winner  equally serves as a Youth Advisory Committee Member for the Knowledge for Prevention Project for The Dallaire Institute for Children, Peace and Security at Dalhousie University Canada.  He has served as Global Chair of the Commonwealth Youth Peace Ambassadors Network.

Christian’s experience as a practitioner, researcher and scholar has provided him with the unique opportunity to contribute to local, national and global conversations, initiatives and implemented over 600 projects on youth empowerment, peacebuilding, counter violent extremism, and sustainable development.

His innovative approach around providing capacity building and mobilising young people into peacebuilding networks; facilitating community dialogue and peace process in conflict hotspots; supporting the rehabilitation and reintegration of former violent and violent extremist offenders in prisons; preventing child radicalization and recruitment into armed groups has distinguished and made his work more strategic in building violent free communities in Cameroon and across the world.

He has been named thrice in the list of 100 Most Influential Young African; named UNESCO RealLife Hero 2020; decorated as the winner of the Luxembourg Peace Prize in 2018; named Most Influential Young Cameroonian in 2016; named the Commonwealth Young Person of the Year 2016 and received by HRM Queen Elizabeth II. Just to name a few.

It is with this background and more recommendations and votes from the organizing committee that earned him the award and distinctions.

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