Living Together: Cameroon Learns From Swiss Experience

The Swiss Federal Delegate for Plurilingualism, Nicoletta Mariolini had a working session with National Commission for the Promotion of Bilingualism and Multiculturalism members.

Cameroon’s National Commission for the Promotion of Bilingualism and Multiculturalism has since January 21, 2017 evening been learning  and getting inspired from the best practices  from the Swiss Federal Delegate for Plurilingualism, Nicoletta Mariolini who is on a working visit to the country  up to January 26, 2018.

The Commission’s Chairperson, Peter Mafany Musonge and his close aides welcomed Nicoletta Mariolini at the Yaounde-Nsimalen International Airport on Sunday, January 21 but the real experience-sharing process came on January 22, 2018 during the working session between the Commission’s officials and the visiting Swiss Federal Delegate for Pluri-lingualism at the Commission head office.

The in-camera working session chaired by the Commission’s President Peter Mafany Musonge brought together its Vice President, Secretary General, Chairpersons of the three Working Groups on Bilingualism, Multiculturalism and Living Together.

On the Swiss side were Nicoletta Mariolini, Swiss Ambassador to Cameroon, Pietro Lazzeri. After the working session, Nicoletta Mariolini told the press, “It was the first exchange of our experiences. Switzerland can also discover a lot of common points in knowing the experience of Cameroon.” She specified,

“The experience in Switzerland is to preserve and protect language minorities and the representation of the language communities at the Federal level. Our concept is to share responsibilities at each level of our institutions and to share responsibilities with the society as a whole because plurilingualism can onl...