Scientology-supported Human Rights Program Expands into Cameroon

The African Human Rights Leadership Campaign, under the banner of Youth for Human Rights, launches in Cameroon to provide young African men and women the training and experience to create and sustain a just and prosperous society.

Decades of gruesome civil wars have decimated wide regions of sub-Sahara Africa. Despite their tremendous natural and human resources, the 26 lowest ranking countries in the United Nations Human Development Index are in this region. The determination to change these conditions prompted the establishment of the African Human Rights Leadership Campaign, an initiative of Youth for Human Rights International.

The campaign, supported by the Church of Scientology, is set to launch in Cameroon this year. It was initiated in 2005 by attorney Tim Bowles, Youth for Human Rights International Director for International Development, now also Human Rights Director of the Church of Scientology of Pasadena, California.

Through the African Human Rights Leadership Campaign, teams of high school students generate and conduct public awareness campaigns on abuses of articles of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, such as human trafficking, restricted access to justice and government corruption. Participants in the program learn leadership and organizational and communication skills—including public speaking and videography—to enable them to present views effectively. Conducting their campaigns through media, public and private sector leaders and the general public, students become meaningful participants in their respective nation’s social, political and cultural advancement.

Over the past eight years, the program has expanded into Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Togo and Ethiopia, and now to Cameroon.

Scientologists on five continents engage in collaborative efforts with government agencies and nongovernmental organizations to bring about broad-scale awareness and implementation of the 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the world’s premier human rights document.

The Church of Scientology published Scientology: How We Help—United for Human Rights, Making Human Rights a Global Reality, to meet requests for more information about the human rights education and awareness initiative the Church supports. To learn more, visit www.Scientology.org/humanrights.

Scientology Founder L. Ron Hubbard wrote, “Human rights must be made a fact, not an idealistic dream,” and the Scientology religion is based on the principles of human rights. The Code of a Scientologist calls on all members of the religion to dedicate themselves “to support true humanitarian endeavors in the fields of human rights.”