MAY 2003

Expansion in Burkina Faso

In mid-May, Dr. Fitigu Tadesse (Vice President) and Jennifer Thomson (Senior Program Officer, AWFFI) visited The Hunger Project Epicenters and the African Women Food Farmer Initiative (AWFFI) partners, in Burkina Faso in West Africa. The following is their report.

Toulfé Epicenter

· The Toulfé Epicenter was just completed in 2002 and is one of the newer Epicenters in Burkina. The Epicenter building contains the following facilities: a Meeting and training room, a grinding mill for grain (millet), a local store, a food bank, a rural bank, a generator for electricity, and modern latrines for sanitation. A local health facility already exists near-by which meant that a health center was unnecessary in the Epicenter.

Dr. Tadesse (on left) in discussion with the Epicenter Committee President (2nd from left) and members of the community in front of the Epicenter meeting and training room.

· AWFFI women have organized themselves into seven Women’s Associations, and the AWFFI Credit Committee has approved and disbursed a total of $22,000 in loans to 500 women, with the average loan being about $40. The most popular activities that the women undertake with the credit is livestock raising and food vending.

^{The manager of the Rural Bank
(middle) with THP staff and the bank's safe deposit box.}

· Women’s and men’s groups in the communities have already started to work on their community fields in all the villages of the Epicenter to improve food production. They grow beans, sesame seeds and peanuts, and a few groups grow potatoes and tomatoes. These communal fields are cultivated in December and January after families have cultivated and harvested their own family crops.

Bougué Epicenter

· The Bougué Epicenter is currently being constructed and will include: a meeting and training & literacy room, a grinding mill for grain (millet), a food bank and a rural bank.

· Five women and five men make up the Epicenter Committee - they were elected to work with the community to organize the community’s contribution to the building of the epicenter.

^{Dr. Tadesse and Ms. Thomson with
members of the Bougué community in front of the construction site of the
Epicenter building.}

· AWFFI will start working in Bougué soon and will be working with women like these pictured below spinning cotton into yarn.

^{During the VCA meeting with the
community, some women brought some cotton spinning and carding work to do
while listening.}

Bissiga Epicenter

· Like Bougué, the Bissiga Epicenter is also a new Epicenter in 2003. The Epicenter building is currently being constructed and will include the same facilities as the Bougué Epicenter.

^{· As in Bougué, the Bissiga Epicenter Committee has been elected
and has started to mobilize the community.

^{The Epicenter Committee Vice President
with her baby.}

· The women in Bissiga have been involved with AWFFI for several
years before the Epicenter construction started and 300 women are now
participating.

^{This AWFFI woman is a rice vendor in
the local market. The rice is grown locally.

Another AWFFI woman used her loan to
buy more supplies for her restaurant. She has five children, three of
whom, all girls, are in elementary school, and they help her run the
restaurant. She plans to use AWFFI loans to eventually move to a more
lucrative location in the market.}
Zincko Epicenter

· The Zincko Epicenter was the first Epicenter of The Hunger
Project-Burkina in 1997. Therefore, having worked in partnership with The
Hunger Project for 5 years, Zincko is now financially autonomous. The
Epicenter Committee and the various sub-committees are fully in charge of all
activities in the Epicenter, without the financial support of THP. THP visits
periodically for follow-up and to advise the Committees as needed.
· During the Global Office meeting with 60 people from the
Epicenter, Jennifer Thomson, the Senior Program Officer for AWFFI, announced
that Mrs. Asseita Nagbila, THP Africa Prize for Leadership for the
African Woman Food Farmer torchbearer, was named as one of the “21
Leaders for the 21st Century” given by Women’s E-News, an international
news agency that focuses on the accomplishments and challenges of women in
today’s world.
Mrs. Nagbila thanked The Hunger Project for this news and pointed out that
the whole population of Zincko - and especially the women - shares in this
recognition given to her because all of the community’s achievements area
result of working together. Mrs. Nagbila is the Vice-President of the
Epicenter Committee and also President of the Epicenter Women’s Association.

^{Zincko Nagbila receiving Women's E-News recognition.

· The Food Bank was very full with about 100 large sacks of
millet stored since last year’s harvest. This is in preparation for the
upcoming rainy season when people’s home supplies of grain start to run out,
beginning in June until harvest time in November. Paradoxically, many people’s
food stores run out right at the beginning of the rainy season, which is when
they start to cultivate the new crop and therefore need a lot of energy for the
hard physical labor involved.
At harvest time in November, they will replenish the Food Bank with food
grown in the Epicenter communal gardens and the Epicenter committee will buy
extra food as needed while food prices are low. The Food Bank Committee sets
their prices lower than the market price to ensure that the poorest people in
the area can afford to buy grain, or to take grain on credit until the next
harvest. The Food Bank plays a very important role for all of these reasons. In
addition, it ensures that there is a local supply of grain available especially
during the rainy season when the roads frequently become impassable and food
transport becomes unpredictable.

^{· The President of the Credit Committee and the Manager of the Zincko
rural bank - both of whom are women - reported that the bank is also doing
well. This bank operates fully autonomously from The Hunger Project and received
official government recognition one year ago, in May 2002. With their
initial loan fund of $25,000 given by The Hunger Project, the rural bank was
able to disburse almost 240 loans for over $33,000 during 2002 (making
the average loan about $138) and about 80% of the loans are to women.
Since inception, $10,500 has been put into savings.
· The traditional tie-dye workshop also doing well. The area
where Zincko is located has always been famous for its traditional tie-dyed
fabrics, so the workshop has been able to benefit from that existing knowledge
which goes back many generations. Currently, 22 people work at the workshop,
including 10 women, doing the dying and sewing the fabric into bolt of cloth and
into garments. The local market for their products is very good and they are
producing at their maximum capacity and growing to satisfy that market. The
tie-dye workshop maintains their business account at the rural bank and has
benefited from credit to increase their activities.

^{Women preparing cloth for tie-dying

·

Several villages in the area have invested in their own grinding
machines for grain (mostly millet), in partnership with The Hunger Project,
in addition to the one at the Epicenter building. A Management Committee
operates and maintains the mills and charges a small fee to the women who use
the service in order to cover the costs of operation. A woman who lives in one
of these villages shared that the grinding machines have significantly reduced
the drudgery of women’s work as they no longer have to pound the millet using
a mortar and pestle, which is a very laborious process. In addition, a man who
also lives in a partner village, added that men and the whole community have
benefited because the small restaurants in the local market no longer run out of
food because the owners (mostly women) are now able to adequately supply their
restaurants with ground millet which was not previously sufficiently available.
· The Epicenter Committee President spoke about the recent
accomplishments including:

o The Epicenter Committee met with representatives of the Swiss
Government who agreed to commit to constructing 8 more literacy centers
in the villages so that the 20 literacy teachers trained by THP will have
classrooms in each village.
o Many families have created latrines in their homes and
have taken measures to ensure clean drinking water in the home as a
result of health training provided by THP.
o Each THP Village Committee has provided communal fields in each village
for women, men and youth to cultivate to increase food production.}}}}