Burkina Faso

SUPPORT FOR PEOPLE DISPLACED BY CONFLICT - EDUCATIONAL, HEALTH AND NUTRITIONAL SUPPORT FOR CHILDREN

Context

In the heart of Burkina Faso, in the province of Oubritenga, in the Guié region, eleven villages (11,000 people) have joined forces to take charge of their own development, in order to combat desertification. They have set up the Zoramb Naagtaabaa association. This Burkinabè association is run by a Frenchman, Henri Girard, who has been working with the villagers for 33 years on agricultural (via Terre Verte), health and educational projects. Only 13% of Burkinabe men and 10% of Burkinabe women are literate. The Burkinabè association is developing education for children in this province by supporting state schools, building schools, colleges and lycées, training adults, sponsoring schooling, literacy courses and setting up libraries. Since 2002, Mission Enfance has built 10 schools, 2 secondary schools equipped with wells and housing for teachers, 2 dispensaries/maternities in Goéma and Fiily, as well as a nursery to take in abandoned or orphaned babies, and a training centre for nurses to care for these children. The dispensaries are fully operational, in particular to treat the people displaced by the terrorist attacks in the north of the country. Mission Enfance sends containers every year and contributes to the running of AZN.

Goal

• To improve the education of children in Burkina Faso through school sponsorship and the construction of schools,
• Provide food self-sufficiency to the population,
• Stabilising the displaced in the North Centre through access to drinking water.

Mission Enfance has been supporting AZN/Terre Verte's agricultural projects for twenty years by creating agricultural areas in Filly and providing annual support for its Pilot Farm. In these villages, the aim is to ensure food self-sufficiency for the villagers of the region, through better water management in the perimeters created for this purpose. In 2023, we started work on 11 boreholes and 4 wells (a 3-year project lasting until 2025) to stabilise displaced populations in 12 villages in the Oula department, near Filly.

In 2024, after drilling a well in the village of Faada-Poulboré (near Guié), for displaced people from the north, we started building an extension to the village school to accommodate 395 children displaced by the conflict. It will be completed in 2025.
We are currently evaluating a new project for boreholes and schools in the Tougo region, which is home to many people displaced by the conflict.

Partners: Association Zoramb Naagtaaba – AZN et Terre Verte (Henri Girard)