Inspired by its mission to stimulate employment, a sector conference by the North West branch of the National Employment Fund (NEF), has unveiled enormous poverty alleviation opportunities in the handicraft sector.

"Handicraft as the vector of employment and development" was the subject at the centre of deliberations that assembled professionals and stakeholders on November 29, 2013.It was all about texts regulating the sector, speedbrakes, training and employment opportunities to serve the North West, a region with a lot to offer in copper, bronze, wood carrving, weaving, embroidery and pottery activities.

Setting the tone, the Regional Director of NEF, Mbe Shiezi Augustine told sector conference participants about the nation's handicraft potentials with over 40.000 people involved. The Inspector General in the governor's office, Ivo Makoge who was around with the blessings of the administration, sounded off about the dexterity of Cameroon's craftsmen and women with the production of masks, figurines, statuettes, sculptures, leather goods, local skin, fabrics etc. The NEF sector conference according to him was, an excellent platform for actors to deliberate, size up challenges and suggests solutions to unleash the full potentials of the sector.

It was against this backdrop that stakeholders later resolved to produce modalities towards the creation of an association of North West Craftsmen and women, lobby the Ministries of Secondary and Basic Education to enrol handicraft on the time tables of schools and colleges. The need for more conferences on the subject involving the Ministries of Small and Medium Size enterprises, Tourism and Leisure was expressed.

The conference featured Chindo Emilia, Mbah Crispus and Njini Victor as Resource persons with lessons which demonstrate that handicraft, known to be the oldest industry in Cameroon is still haunted by lack of access to credits for development, lack of training opportunities, lack of social protection and administrative speed brakes.

Curtains dropped with revelations that NEF is a blessing to the sector and others. It emerged from the Regional Director, Mbe Shiezi Augustine that barely three years since inception in the North West, the NEF branch has received 1964 job seekers and oriented them into various domains, offered employment opportunities to 1034, trained 431 in various on-the-job and formal training programmes, funded 339 persons with FCFA 33.365.000, organized six job seeking seminars covering 111 jobseekers and involved 120 students in four industrial trips after some six sessions of professional orientations in schools and universities. They have also featured prominently in the promotion of enterprises with some 50 entrepreneurs recently trained on 'Recruitment based on performance'.