Burkina Faso
Jan 29th, 2012 9:00 AM UTC
By Field
ONE member and Peace Corps volunteer Brandon Green will be sharing his experiences in Burkina Faso with ONE Blog readers in the series, “Back to Africa” over the next few months. We look forward to hearing about all his adventures!
Me and my students at our HIV/AIDS talk
At one of my English Clubs — a place for students to practice their English — last Tuesday, 140 7th and 8th graders crammed into a classroom that shouldn’t be able to hold more than a third of them. They were there to learn a few English words and watch the American put a condom on a wooden penis. I was there to teach them about HIV/AIDS. The class started by discussing what HIV/AIDS is and how it affects the human body. Then, I showed them some statistics about people living with HIV/AIDS worldwide. I told them that sub-Saharan Africa has the highest number of infections, and that 1.2 percent of the population of Burkina Faso is currently living with HIV/AIDS.
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ONE member and Peace Corps volunteer Brandon Green will be sharing his experiences in Burkina Faso with ONE Blog readers in the series, “Back to Africa” over the next few months. We look forward to hearing all his adventures!
Nadine is 14 years old and in the 7th grade. She wakes up at 4 a.m. every day to sweep the courtyard and house before her father wakes. Then she walks to the pump to fetch water for the entire family for the day. She then prepares breakfast, most likely a type of porridge made from millet. The younger children eat first and if there is any left, Nadine might get a little. She readies the children for their day at school or in the fields. After quickly washing up, she bikes the 20-minute ride to get to school. She usually arrives just in time.
Nadine doing chores with her sister. Photo credit: Brandon Green.
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ONE member and Peace Corps volunteer Brandon Green will be sharing his experiences in Burkina Faso with ONE Blog readers in the series, “Back to Africa” over the next few months. We look forward to hearing about all his adventures!
Brandon Green in Burkina Faso
I was born in Texas but because my parents are missionaries, and as a result, I’ve had the wonderful opportunity to travel the world. We actually spent a lot of time in Senegal when I was a child, but I don’t have many memories of living there. I do, however, remember falling out of a swing and having the wind knocked out of me. And I remember watching a lizard climb up a tree. But even with a lack of memories, I’ve always felt as if Africa was my true home. And after having been away for more than 17 years, I’m finally back.
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Elaine Kelley of the US Embassy Ouagadougou shares her experience visiting “self help” project sites in Burkina Faso. These projects are making a huge impact on the quality of life for many Burkinabé.
The US Embassy in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso will hold an Agreements Signing Ceremony in September for the 23 new micro-development projects it will support for small associations and communities in Burkina Faso. They plan to kick-off more than a dozen additional projects this month. These “self help” projects are a great example of how different US government agencies can work together to meet a common goal.
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A great story from our partners at Self-Help Africa about a market gardening project in Burkina Faso. For 25 years, Self-Help Africa has given farmers new seed, irrigation advice, small loans and access to markets to help them grow more food and lift their families and communities out of hunger and poverty.
Forty-one villagers in Dassui make up the ‘Wenden Kondo’ (God Will Provide) market gardening group. Through a local group the partners with Self-Help Africa, they learned how to grow the best crops and were given seeds, tools and funding for fencing and a water supply.
Today, they grow onions, cabbage, carrots, chili, garlic and rice and grain during the rainy season. They use some of the vegetables to feed their families, and some they sell in the nearby Bitte market.
Zungrana Awaya, a mother of six and the secretary of the group, is one of Wenden Kondo’s 20 women members. She says the gardening project has provided a valuable source of income for her family.
‘I was born in this village, but I left because there did not seem to be any way for me to make a living. But the garden is creating new opportunities.”
It’s a hard job, she says. But life is getting a little better. In fact, everything is getting a little better. The money that they get from their farming activities is helping Zungrana and the other villagers send their children to school and buy medicine when it is needed.
And their hard work is supporting nearly 400 people in their local community.
“My son, who is 17, says that he wants to leave because he has few prospects of work,’ Zungrana says.
But she tells him not to forget about the garden. “It is new, but we are hopeful that it will grow.”
Every day, my job is to tell a story — a story about Africa. And to help highlight the critical role women play in agriculture, I wanted to share with you a tale from Burkina Faso about a woman who is partnering with Africare to pioneer new farming techniques in her village.
Through this partnership, she was able to grow her farm from 20 hens to 175, enabling her to pay for her four children to go to school, buy more food for her family and reinvest in the farm. Read the rest of her story here.
This is just one example of the inspiring work happening on the ground in Africa. To read and watch many more stories from the field, particularly about agriculture and food security, please visit Africare’s story page.
-Nicole Eley, multimedia communications and marketing, Africare
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New focus on Sanitation in Burkina Faso – Burkina Faso has embarked on the construction of 55,000 latrines each year for the next five years to improve access to proper sanitation by more than 40 percent. The new initiative was spurred by findings that the current pace is insufficient to attain the Millennium Development Goal on sanitation in a context of rapid population growth. (Brahima Ouédraogo, IPS)
