14 year old Divina Maloum of Cameroon has been awarded the International Children’s Peace Prize this November 20, 2019 in the Netherlands.
She received the prize on the occasion of Universal Children’s Day as recognition for an organization she created for kids rights for her fight against children engaging in extremism.
In 2014 ,the 14 year old Divina Maloum created an association called Children for Peace after her visit to Cameroon’s Northern boarders with Nigeria where Boko Haram terrorism has taken the lives of many most especially children.
The situation motivated her to get engaged in fighting for children’s rights by working from one school to the other so as to stimulate the civic and voluntary engagement of Children in the fight against violent extremism to make them be peace builders in their communities and be change makers.
Maloum’s multiple campaigns visiting schools and talking with her peers has been very impactful as it has dragged many young minds from falling into the dragnets of extremists.
The 14 year old has been on the vanguard of peace talks in classrooms, organising multiple sensitization campaigns creating awareness on children radicalisation by terrorists groups.
This led to her recognition as a peace hero by the Netherlands organization for kids’ rights.
Her association Children for Peace now has a network of 100 children across Cameroon’s ten regions.
Apart from the above on Divina’s achievements which made her win the International Children’s Peace Prize, she has been organizing inter community children’s peace camps, established peace clubs in Mosques together with other children, issued a children’s declaration against violent extremism.
Following recent unrest in other parts of the country, the young peace activist says her main concern now is for peace to return in the Northwest and southwest regions of the country so that pupils and students go back to school again.
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