BARKA Foundation and Wyoming Seminary Students Provide Clean Water for Students in Burkina Faso
2021-04-20 15:08:02 – Fada N’Gourma, Burkina Faso In the spirit of internationalism, environmentalism, and reciprocity, Wyoming Seminary (Sem) students, faculty, and staff collaborate with The BARKA Foundation (BARKA) to benefit over 400 students at the Namoungou Middle and High Schools in Burkina Faso, West Africa. The campaign began on World Water Day (3/22) and continues through Earth Day (4/22).
Students in Namoungou have been displaced due to terrorism and a rapidly deteriorating security situation that has led to one of the world’s fastest-growing humanitarian crises. Violence has led to the displacement of more than one million people in just two years and has left 3.5 million people in need of assistance, a 60% increase in the past year. (ReliefWeb, Feb 2021)
Wyoming Seminary parent Adam Ruderman, a BARKA Board member, connected Sem and BARKA, a UN-affiliated nonprofit based in the US and Burkina Faso. BARKA implements a wide range of projects in five strategic areas: water, sanitation, and hygiene; women’s empowerment; education; sustainable agriculture; and the cultural arts and media.
Ruderman introduced BARKA’s co-Founders Ina and Esu Anahata to faculty members Jill Carrick, Nicole Lewis, and Barbara Rogers, who felt compelled to act when they learned of the dire needs affecting displaced students of Namoungou. Many students are currently living without parents or any financial support, and sometimes without food and water, which must be paid for monthly.
Sem will engage both the Upper and Lower schools for five weeks in a robust series of activities including a penpal correspondence between Namoungou students and the Sem French Club, live discussion with a BARKA Board member about problems facing Burkina Faso, and discussions of age-appropriate videos created for this program depicting the lives of Namoungou students (see links below).
The program culminates in a Walk for Water which will be held virtually on Earth Day, April 22. The event will be open to all students and their families, as well as alumni and friends of Sem. For a donation of $6 participants will walk (or ride their bicycle) any distance with the option of sharing a photo of themselves on their walk. Each participant will be given the name of a Namoungou student to personalize the connection. Six dollars is symbolic in that it pays for water for one student for three months (the remaining time before returning to their parents over break).
“We’re thrilled to be collaborating with Sem to inspire students to take action, become global citizens and develop their sense of planetary responsibility. This will greatly help their counterparts in Burkina Faso simply have clean water to drink and bathe, a fundamental human right,” said BARKA Co-founder Ina Anahata.
Two short films about the dire situation of the Namoungou school and its students will be released on YouTube on 4/19 along with a teaching guide to help facilitate discussion.
About The BARKA Foundation
BARKA empowers communities in Africa to thrive and builds bridges between schools, civic organizations, and individuals in Burkina Faso and the United States. For more information or to make a donation, visit the BARKA Foundation website at https://barkafoundation.org.
This post is to serve as an educational tool for teachers who are viewing the BARKA created video “A DAY IN THE LIFE OF STUDENTS FROM NAMOUNGOU MIDDLE AND HIGH SCHOOLS, BURKINA FASO“. It is intended to provide additional context necessary for understanding what the video depicts, and to facilitate a series of discussion topics on issues such as poverty, education, water accessibility, childhood, culture, etc.
Comments and Discussion Topics for Namoungou Film
The video begins with a shot of the Burkina Faso flag. Burkinabè (people from Burkina) take great pride in their country and their flag. Burkina Faso literally means Land of the Upright People, as in people who are honest and incorruptible.
The temperature outside is close to 100 degrees F.
Most students ride bikes to school, teachers use motos (like mini motorcycles).
At :32 notice how the teachers are wearing masks, protecting themselves, but the students don’t wear masks (even though BARKA distributed them to this school) and masking is not enforced. Many people in Burkina are unconcerned about COVID because it hasn’t hit in large numbers. This may be because the population is so young (average age under 17) and because it’s so hot year round (COVID passes more easily in cold weather). Many people in Burkina feel COVID is a “western disease”.
Students are biking anywhere from 3 to 10 miles to get to their homes, which they live in by themselves without their parents who are in Namoungou (30 miles away). This school is located on the outskirts of Fada N’Gourma, the main city center of the eastern region. (Fada N’Gourma is easily visible on almost any map of Burkina)
Notice the footwear. Most students just wear flipflops. Some are even barefoot.
The house where the boys live is a single room, concrete structure with a metal roof. The roof will leak in the rainy season- you can see the holes.
Daveni Frederick, the little boy who speaks is the leader of the group, does the cooking, and later is the one to say let’s wash hands before eating.
Clothes are hung on a string which serves as a clothesline. There is no closet and no drawers.
Inside the home it is even hotter than outside, possibly 120F.
The food from last night stays out without any refrigeration. It would not keep past today.
You’ll notice that Daveni Frederick drinks water first. This is because he is the leader. Social structures in Africa are very hierarchical.
The boys wash hands without soap. They should have some soap in the house but maybe only use it for bathing. This could be to conserve the soap, or it could also be because they do not understand the importance of washing their hands with soap. Hands are always washed before eating in Burkina, but most often without soap. Also, maybe they have no soap. The students all complained about not being able to bathe properly. Teachers have complained about the lack of students’ hygiene.
The boys share food from a single bowl and eat with hands. This is common, family style. It’s quite fun to eat with your hands. You’ll see how they make a ball with the food so it is easier to pick it up. There is an art to eating with one’s hands. They only eat with their right hand. The left hand is used for cleaning themselves after going to the bathroom (again often with water alone and no soap, hence the large incidence of diseases such as typhoid and diarrhea due to fecal to oral transmission). The boys are eating benga, a traditional bean dish. It does not seem that they even bothered to heat it up. This is certainly their first meal of the day, even though they woke up at 6 and rode to school by 7. There was no breakfast.
When we see the girls, two of them have cellphones. These are inexpensive phones. One can receive calls for free, but must buy credits to be able to call out. Students also share videos and music with each other by Bluetooth, which is something we can’t even do here in the US yet (it is common in China).
At 6 minutes in to the video, the girls cook in the traditional way, over an open fire, with 3 stones and a cooking pot. The stones are positioned to hold the pot while accommodating sticks that are added below to feed the fire. It is time consuming, and the wood must be paid for or fetched by the girls themselves.
At 6:25, this boy who has no bike and no food actually wears headphones (this is what’s around his neck).
6:45 The girls go for their daily ride to the pump to fill their own water in the plastic yellow jugs. Imagine having to fetch all the water you use in a day for drinking, cooking, bathing and washing clothes.
A full 5-gallon jug of water weighs 40 pounds. Many women carry this on their heads every day. They attach the water to the back of the bike and ride it effortlessly. It is actually not easy. Since the well is not far from home, one girl pushes the bike as she holds the water in place. Maybe she doesn’t have straps.
7:33 Kankampoua uses a wooden spoon to cook with. Every Burkina woman has a wooden spoon. In 2014 when there were protests against the dictatorial president who was overthrown, the women came out in the streets holding up their wooden spoons.
There are no adults to be found anywhere in the students’ lives outside of school. They are on their own. Children in Africa are used to taking care of little siblings, helping their mother with cooking, childcare, fetching water, and washing clothes. Children work and take on these tasks as soon as they are old enough to do so. Without such experience and practice, it is unlikely these children would be able to fend for themselves as well as they do.
Effective March 1st, Afric’up: Ya Soma, the first major menstrual cup project in Burkina Faso herstory has begun its implementation.
This has been made possible by a $35,000 grant from Together Women Rise (formerly Dining for Women) and a $25,000 grant from International Foundation, and by gifts from individual donors.
Project partners include social enterprise Menstru’elles and cup expert Femme International. The project will distribute cups and provide comprehensive menstrual, sexual and reproductive health (MSRH) training to 1230 women and girls and strengthen the capacities of 15 local community health centers and MSRH associations.
Please see the initial press release announcing the project and support from Dining for Women here.
Menstrual Cups Coming Soon to Burkina Faso in Project Afric’up: Ya Soma
Dining for Women funds first major menstrual cup project in Burkina Faso, to be led by The BARKA Foundation, Menstru’elles, and Femme International.
Burkina Faso- November 30, 2020
For Immediate Release:
Click here to access the online distributed Press Release.
The BARKA Foundation is pleased to announce it has received a grant for a menstrual cup pilot project in Burkina Faso from Dining for Women, a community of women engaged in education, advocacy, and grant-making to build the movement for global gender equality. BARKA will collaborate with a budding Ouagadougou-based social enterprise Menstru’elles and Femme International, a menstrual health NGO in Africa that has successfully worked with cups for 8 years.
“Together we will break the silence surrounding the taboo of menstruation, provide comprehensive training on Menstrual, Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights and lay the groundwork for sustainable cup and menstrual health programming on a national level”, said Ina Anahata, BARKA’s co-founder.
“Menstrual cups are a financially- and environmentally-sustainable tool that decreases many of the barriers women and girls face during menstruation. Menstruation is a normal function for half the world’s population, yet brings about a host of practical problems as well as social stigma and shame. A lack of high-quality, available, and affordable menstrual products makes it hard for women to go to work or school, have a social life, and move about freely. Too often women and girls resort to unhygienic alternatives or do without any feasible menstrual management solution, creating a gender equity issue that impacts their quality of life, their families, the economy, and society at large”, said Jennifer Rubli, Research and M&E Coordinator with Femme International, and Master Teacher of two comprehensive workshops for this project.
This project, called Afric’up: Ya Soma (Ya Soma is an expression in Moré, Burkina’s most widely spoken language, which means “It’s Good”) is the first major menstrual cup project in Burkina Faso history and among the first in all of West Africa which has yet to adopt widespread use of cups. “There is strong early demand for cups in Burkina which we expect to continue, and our social enterprise will assure a sustainable supply of cups post-project”, said Elodie Koundouno, founder of Menstru’elles.
According to Dr. Veena Khandke, Director of Grants and Partnerships, Dining for Women, “Our donors are excited about Dining for Women funding its first project ever in the landlocked nation of Burkina Faso. The project partners are all ideally suited for the task—BARKA has deep knowledge of the socio-cultural context of Burkina, Menstru’elles will be able to sell cups after project completion to meet the demand this project creates, and Femme is a cup expert in Africa which will lend its tried and true methodology to ensure successful outcomes.”
The pilot will use a bottom-up and top-down approach that engages key government, community, and religious stakeholders, while partnering with women to demonstrate feasibility and demand. The project will partner with ten community health centers and local associations focusing on issues of women’s health in Ouagadougou. “We’re thrilled to have this opportunity to introduce menstrual cups to more than 1200 women and girls in Burkina Faso. Cups are a safe, comfortable, cost-effective, and sustainable solution, with the potential to be a game changer for menstruating women and girls in Burkina”, said Esu Anahata, BARKA Foundation co-founder.
About The BARKA Foundation (BARKA)
The BARKA Foundation is a 501c3 nonprofit charitable organization, has UN NGO affiliation and Consultative Status with ECOSOC, and is based in both the US and Burkina Faso. BARKA implements a wide range of projects in areas of water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), women’s empowerment, education, sustainable agriculture and the cultural arts. Since 2006 the NGO has benefitted over 65,000 rural villagers. BARKA is committed to the concept of reciprocity by building bridges between schools, civic organizations and individuals in Burkina Faso and the United States.
For more information, or to support this project visit the BARKA Foundation website at https://barkafoundation.org.
Sisterhood SARL, a local social enterprise visible with the commercial brand “Menstru’elles”, is dedicated to providing access to cost-effective, healthy and environmentally-friendly menstrual solutions, while reducing stigma around menstruation and sharing positive and valuable information about Menstrual Health. They are cup pioneers in Burkina Faso, with direct and indirect sales through women ambassadors, and small-scale distribution programs. Although newly active, the team is already referenced as cup experts and plays a major role in raising awareness among health actors, associations and institutions to promote the safe and broader use of cups.
For more information or to support this project visit the Menstru’elles website at https://www.menstruelles.com
Femme International is a menstrual health NGO in East Africa that uses education, conversation, and distribution to break taboos and address the barriers people face as a result of menstruation. They have been implementing menstrual interventions and working with menstrual cups for 8 years, working with nearly 20,000 menstruators. Additionally, they are M&E experts and working to bridge the gap between research and programme implementation, ensuring evidence is accessible and practical.
For more information or to support this project visit the Femme International website at www.femmeinternational.org
Press Contact: Jen Rubli
Email: jennifer@femmeinternational.org
About Dining for Women
Dining for Women is a powerful community of women and allies engaged in education, advocacy, and grant making to build the movement for global gender equality.
We have hundreds of chapters across the U.S., where members come together to learn about issues impacting women and girls globally, give charitably to support organizations working to empower and create opportunities for women and girls globally, and advocate for international development aid that supports women’s interests.
For more information or to support this project visit the Dining for Women website at www.diningforwomen.org
Working with the National Gendarmerie, BARKA also distributed 500 masks to prisoners in Fada N’Gourma and provided locally-produced soap for 5000 villagers and IDPs
Burkina Faso- July 31, 2020
For Immediate Release:
The BARKA Foundation, a UN-affiliated NGO based in the United States and Burkina Faso, collaborated with Burkina Faso’s Ministry of Education to distribute face masks to 2000 students as they begin their final exams on Monday August 3rd. This is part of BARKA’s continuing action to fight against the spread of COVID-19 within Burkina. In April and May, BARKA distributed locally produced soap and delivered sensitization about the importance of handwashing with soap to 5000 rural villagers and internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the commune of Fada. In addition, BARKA is supporting the Gendarmerie Nationale through the distribution of 500 face masks that will go toward prisoners who are at increased risk of contracting the novel coronavirus. All masks were made locally by La Belle Epine, a professional training school for tailors which recently established a regional network of tailors to produce masks for the government and NGOs such as BARKA Foundation. The masks are made from traditional cloth, known locally as “Faso Dan Fani” with cotton grown in Burkina Faso.
“All of BARKA’s COVID-19 prevention initiatives were made possible through online grassroots fundraising. We are extraordinarily grateful to and humbled by the many individual donors in the US who generously contributed to this campaign,” said Esu Anahata, BARKA co-Founder and Executive Director. “We wish to thank our local partners in Burkina Faso: the Regional Direction of Education, the Gendarmerie Nationale, Belle Epine, and local women’s associations which produced soap for IDPs and BARKA’s partner villages. Their collaborative efforts have made these actions possible”, said Ina Anahata, BARKA co-Founder and Chief Gratitude Officer.
“The President of Burkina Faso called for solidarity to fight COVID-19 and this is exemplified by BARKA’s action to distribute face masks for students and prisoners who were among the most vulnerable and in need of such protection right now”, stated Koadima Boukari, founder of La Belle Epine.
“This year, the end-of-year exams are taking place in a particular context marked by COVID-19. To support the Regional Direction of Education in the East (DPEPS/Est) in the adoption of barrier measures by all those involved in the baccalaureate exam, the NGO BARKA Foundation provides invaluable support with masks made from traditional cloth produced here in the Eastern region with locally grown cotton. We send, on behalf of our hierarchy, to BARKA and to all its partners our most distinguished thanks. We wish them every success in their commitment to a more resilient education system”, added François Xavier OUEDRAOGO, DPEPS/Gourmand.
Click here to see coverage of this initiative in LeFaso.net within Burkina Faso.
On May 28, Menstrual Hygiene Day, BARKA’s 3 top Menstrual Health Project Leaders took to the radio waves to sensitize the entire eastern region about menstrual issues, breaking the silence on this taboo subject.
The 3 women, Madame Salimata Zalle, Madame Awa Traore, and Madame Elvire Bonkoungou entered the radio Station of BARKA’s local partner Tin Tua Association and provided information about the menstrual cycle, and how menstruating women and girls can take proper hygienic care of themselves and their daughters. They answered questions and demystified a process with which far too many girls and women of Burkina Faso are unfamiliar. The program airs to over 50,000 people and will be repeated again later this month.
The radio program, conducted in French and hosted by Peace Sarambe, BARKA’s General Manager, is now available for on demand listening here:
“This year, the end-of-year exams are taking place in a particular context marked by COVID-19. To support the Regional Direction of Education in the East (DPEPS/Est) in the adoption of barrier measures by all those involved in the baccalaureate exam, the NGO BARKA Foundation provides invaluable support with masks made from traditional cloth produced here in the Eastern region with locally grown cotton. We send, on behalf of our hierarchy, to BARKA and to all its partners our most distinguished thanks. We wish them every success in their commitment to a more resilient education system”, added François Xavier OUEDRAOGO, DPEPS/Gourmand.
The 3 women, Madame Salimata Zalle, Madame Awa Traore, and Madame Elvire Bonkoungou entered the radio Station of BARKA’s local partner Tin Tua Association and provided information about the menstrual cycle, and how menstruating women and girls can take proper hygienic care of themselves and their daughters. They answered questions and demystified a process with which far too many girls and women of Burkina Faso are unfamiliar. The program airs to over 50,000 people and will be repeated again later this month.