Gamti Boyo Initiative

The Elevate Prize will help seek global visibility and support for GBI and attract attention to the most ignored conflict on the planet today. 

We intend to use the prize funding and support to continue to save lives and enhance livelihoods by providing basic training and access to material and financial support to victims of conflict from Boyo in Cameroon to be gainfully self employed and gravitate towards financial autonomy and resiliency in a three pronged integrated approach:

Rehabilitation. This project shall identify individual homes and businesses destroyed as a result of the armed conflict for community collaborative rehabilitation.

Bridging the Educational Gap through an ICT driven teacher-learner capacity building for online learning, support for infrastructure and equipment and School Psycho Social Assistance.

Basic training, financial and material assistance for Livelihood Support to affected persons in and out of Boyo in the areas of agriculture, craft, commerce, ICTs etc...while reinforcing Community Disaster Networking and Readiness, stimulating Cultural Reboot and Post Conflict Social Cohesion.

These projects shall help individuals, families and communities start up micro-enterprises, reboot education and drive sustainable and profitable growth by optimizing individual, group or organizational social and economic initiatives and performances.

The Gamti Boyo Initiative is a community driven grassroots collective action organization based in Boyo and born out of their pain and solidarity.
Initiated in July and operating since August, 2018 on the heels of an escalating existential crisis and armed conflict in the North West and South West Regions of Cameroon, GBI's mission is to make life saving and eventually sustainable change in the lives of  victims of conflict, assist them to access food, shelter and medication to become more resilient to the cycle of violence and conflict in Boyo and beyond and play a stronger role in resilience building through livelihoods support via strategic partnerships and synergy with organizations like MIT SOLVE. 

GBI is headquartered in Fundong but operates from Bamenda where it's Lead Team Members are based. We are building our capacity as we go in humanitarian intervention, community relationships and understanding of social and institutional dynamics in a conflict context. 

Our programming approach is holistic and designed to have immediate, medium and long-term impacts on communities strengthened by strategic partnerships with organizations and synergies across projects and programs that build into global development goals and outcomes that work for the people. 

 Our mission is to provide humanitarian assistance via emergency response to natural and man-made disasters through food, shelter, medical assistance, support for livelihoods and education for victims of the on-going existential crisis and armed conflict in the North West and South West Regions of Cameroon.

GBI has since July 2018 raised over 10 million Francs CFA, redeemed and spent over 9 million Francs CFA in identifying over 10,000 IDPs and victims and assisted with the collaboration of traditional and religious  structures over 8,000 victims in and out of Boyo out of an estimated 300,000 persons affected in that area in 30 successful operations over the last 3 years. 

We are the first community driven humanitarian initiative with a collaborative lead team and are part of its social fabric with a strong staying power. We aim through sustainable impact to transform the challenges of the affected victims of conflict into potentials of self realization and socio-economic emergence. As local first responders, we strive to mobilize greater community participation and ownership of disaster outcomes and achieve lasting local know how in affected populations by saving lives in the short term and restoring livelihoods in the medium and long terms. 

Non-profit and social enterprises struggle to make concepts like “community participation” and “local empowerment” work for their interventions. GBI is by vision, an embedded grassroots partner that understands the local realities, how deep social injustices run and how to address  them. People whose lives are most affected by social problems are the best solution initiators.

We are effective because of our physical and social proximity to the community. We have vital expertise in the interpersonal and caring relationships in people’s everyday lives. When there's a land slide, when violence breaks out, or a case of abuse or unforeseen medical emergency in a family is discovered, local groups like GBI snap into action to spread the word, mobilise help and provide immediate care to those who need it most. Our unique way of interacting with the communities, social and digital networking make us stand out through:

-Inclusion, effective participation of beneficiaries of our actions and customization
-Interpersonal engagement and interactive learning
-Rapidity in delivery
-Traditional and modern networking platforms and channels of data collection and triangulation
-Committed community based volunteers and facilitators
-Proven results in initiating and sustaining change and driving impact through humanitarian actions.
-Evidence-based use of social media to raise awareness and get communities involved.

Our inclusive bottoms up approach to humanitarian needs assessment, participatory planning and execution of assistance intervention and a collaborative rotatory coordination and supervision of execution of all operations drive our impact on communities. It is also driven by the fact that our empathetic actions target and benefit both the crisis-affected and the host populations.

Many displaced persons live in urban settings rather than camps. It’s important to recognise and allow displaced populations to contribute positively to the economic environment in which they’re living through  training and the right to work hence our focus going forward on livelihoods support.

The Elevate Prize will enable us allocate funds for overheads and capacity building of our staff and volunteers, support the education and vocational training of especially women, girls and vulnerable children, build capacities for and support livelihoods with cash start or reboot capital for micro enterprises while mainstreaming the use of smart technology in our management and projects deliverables. We also aim to set up a digital disaster alert and rapid response networks and start a digital health and disaster insurance scheme for local communities sharing both data, problem identification, participatory solutions and lessons learnt to local, national and international organizations.