They said she looked like “someone living with HIV”. In the lanes around her home in Cameroon, children joked that the rashes on her skin made her look like a frog, that she was turning into a monster. At home, no one explained why she was always ill. For a long time, Honorine did not know what was happening inside her body, or why she had to swallow the bitter pills she sometimes hid away or quietly threw into the bin.
Bogotá, 6 November 2025 — In a global landscape often saturated with promises, the political voice of West and Central Africa resonated clearly at ICFP 2025: it is young, determined, and collective.
This side event will showcase the regional mobilisation led by the Community of committed young people of WCA, bringing together young leaders determined to strengthen accountability in education, health and well-being. The event will offer a dedicated space for dialogue between youth, decision-makers and international partners to share local initiatives, propose concrete solutions and highlight the importance of investing in young people’s voices. It will underline their central role in driving social transformation and their contribution to the broader WCA Commitment movement.
World Teachers’ Day 2025 will centre on the theme “Recasting teaching as a collaborative profession”. — The day highlights the essential role of teachers in strengthening education systems across West and Central Africa, emphasising the value of collaboration, mentorship, peer-learning and collective professional practices to ensure inclusive, quality and resilient education for all.
The 2025 International Youth Day will highlight the official theme, “Local Youth Actions for the SDGs and Beyond.” — The day underscores the importance of young people engaged as agents of change in their communities, and their essential role in advancing the Sustainable Development Goals. It will celebrate youth creativity, leadership and capacity to turn local challenges into concrete actions for a fairer, more sustainable future, through the highlighting of their stories.
The regional workshop to validate the accountability framework of the WCA Commitment took place in Lomé, Togo, from 28 to 31 July 2025. It brought together representatives from the Ministries of Education and Health of the 25 West and Central African countries, alongside youth and civil society organisations. Participants worked collaboratively to finalise the principles, monitoring mechanisms and structure of the accountability framework, strengthening a shared regional vision and ensuring transparent follow-up of commitments for the benefit of adolescents and young people.
This workshop, that will be held in Lomé, Togo, from 28 to 31 July 2025, aims to bring together representatives from the Ministries of Education and Health of the 25 WCA countries, alongside youth and civil society, to co-create, revise, and collectively validate the accountability framework of the WCA Commitment. It serves to consolidate commitments, define monitoring mechanisms, and ensure that all stakeholders fully understand and endorse the principles in a transparent and shared manner.
The statistics are relentless: early pregnancies, gender-based violence, HIV/AIDS, malnutrition—these are just some of the challenges that hinder the education and well-being of millions of children and adolescents every year. Schools, which should be safe havens, sometimes become arenas where inequalities and violence unfold. But schools can also be where change begins.
It is with immense sadness that we learned of the passing of Patrick Alain Fouda Atangana, a young man whose dedication, passion, and determination have left an indelible mark on generations. Patrick was not just a leader; he was a visionary and an inspiration to all who believed in a future where every adolescent and young person could grow up healthy, educated, and thriving.