The situation in Burkina has not changed much since my last blog.

A new prime minister has been appointed. He has been a strong supporter of Sankara and it looks like that he is not in place to get rich but to work for Burkina.

The army is in the process to recruit 50.000 young volunteers who will come in support to the military. They will be trained 2 weeks and armed before going in the field.

The Mossi (major ethnical group in Burkina) are often blaming the Peuhl (or Fulani) for the attacks in the North and in the East of Burkina. Some people are worried that the volunteers will mainly come from the Mossi side and that this might create even more ethnical problems.

People in major towns neither  realize nor are concerned by the security problem. Their activities are going on as usual.

Lunch program in primary schools

This project has been chosen as a priority project for this new school year taking into account the difficult situation that can be seen in the villages.

Costs are 25 euro per child for the school year. It consists of rice, oil and salt. Parents bring the beans for the necessary proteins.

Thank you to all the friends who have already made a donation for this project. We have also been blessed with a very generous donation from the French group GTH which has made it possible to provide the lunch for the first trimester of this new school year to the 3.500 pupils in 15 primary schools and the 330 pupils in 6 nursery schools we are supporting.

The access to food for children is an essential part of the motivation to attend school. It is also an essential input for the health and development of the children.

Click here for more information about this project.

Delivery of goods for the lunch program in Fon.

Director of Kofila B

Directeur of Sokourani

Director of Nefrelaye

Lunch at the nursery school of Nefrelaye.

Click here for a short song before eating.

News from the LAP

Students of the 5th and 7th year have to do an internship during their vacation as part of their curriculum. The 5th year are doing it at the LAP and the 7th year in private farms or institutions.

At a farm in Kouentou internship on rabbits and on strawberries

Internship on corn and on curcuma at the LAP

Following an awareness meeting on blood donation by the health ministry personnel, a blood drive for students older than 18 years old was organized last week. 72 students gave blood.

The analysis of the blood will  give each donor their blood group and will also be checked for Hepatitis A and C, HIV aids and sickle cell anaemia.

Some of the students are not really at ease!

General view of the blood drive.

Short video of the blood drive

Projects in the villages

In Nefrelaye there is a gardening project for women which is doing very well. During the rainy season, there is little activity in the garden.

However Papaya trees are producing very well.

Each papaya is sold at an average price of 0,5 euro. This means that with such a tree a women will make around 30 euro from selling the fruits.

This can allow the women to buy 50kg of rice or 15 litres of edible oil or 30kg of salt or 25 litres of gas.

In the village of Sissa we have started to implement a similar project. During the rainy season the fenced gardening area has been seeded with peanuts. The harvest will help the women to pay in part their share to be a member of the gardening cooperative.

Women of Sissa separating the peanuts from their haulm and baby trying to help

Baby trying to help!

For this project we have the approval from “Electriciens sans Frontières “ but we are still waiting for the funds to execute it.

Displaced people

Due to insecurity, more than 1.000.000 people had to abandon their villages. Odile (director of APPA in Burkina) has a brother, Jean, who is a priest near the city of Tougan which has received many of those displaced people.

We still had some boxes of children hoodies which we were given to us some years back. These sweat shirts were sent to Jean and he distributed them among the children of the displaced people.

Sayings of the month

“The only difference between being uninformed and misinformed is that one is your choice and the other is theirs.” – Frank Sonnenberg

“The truth does not become a lie, right does not become wrong, and good does not become evil, just because the minority believes in conspiracy theories and fake news!” – Paul S. Lynch

Until next month,

Hervé

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