MAY 2006 - UPDATE TO THE GLOBAL BOARD

Progress Report

Epicenter Strategy

THP-Burkina Faso is now working in eleven epicenters of which ten have an ”L” shape epicenter. These epicenters cover more than 1,600 villages in the northern and southern parts of the country with a total population of close to 800,000. The 11th epicenter is currently being built in the district of VY, a new area of intervention located mid-way between the capital city of Ouagadougou and the second town of Bobo Dioulasso.

The epicenter strategy continues to make an enormous impact at both a local and national level in Burkina’s government.  THP-Burkina has continued mobilization of the populations of the eleven epicenters, empowering their leadership, work together on their respective communal lands to achieve food security and ultimately end hunger and poverty. THP Burkina endeavors to support and empower our partners by providing access to technology, training, education (with a focus on adult literacy), health and credit for increased and improved food production, and income-generating activities that support and motivate the grassroots to take decisive actions for their self-reliance.

Investors’ visit

From 19 to 26 March 2006, a group of investors from Australia and the Netherlands visited four epicenters in Burkina Faso. They were impressed by the level of mobilization in each of the epicenters. They visited all the components of the epicenters, including the rural credit bank, the health center, the school, and the food bank. Their visit was as much empowering to our investors as to our partners in Burkina Faso who felt very honored by the presence of partners from the developed world who came to express their partnership and solidarity in their fight against hunger and poverty.

Vision, Commitment and Action Workshop: Animator training

During this first quarter of 2006, the VCA workshops organized by THP-Burkina have reached nearly 2,000 additional people, most of which were women. More than 200 new animators, both men and women, came from these VCA workshops and have been trained and are already working in their villagers with the rural populations to empower them to become self-reliant.

Food Security

Increased Food Production

Burkina Faso is situated close to the Sahara desert. Its major problem is lack of rains and an almost perpetual shortage of water for agricultural irrigation. The result is that Burkina Faso faces chronic food shortage or food deficit.

The country’s challenges are compounded by the continued influx of returnees from the Ivory Coast for the past two years due to the civil strife in that country. This is the environment within which THP-Burkina is mobilizing the rural populations to fight food insecurity through increased and diversified food production where groups of men and women to work together on their epicenter-established communal lands to provide food security by storing part of their harvest in their food banks and to provide better nutrition through the growing of diversified crops.           

Food Banks

The food banks in each of the eleven epicenters are the best and most effective way to protect the population from chronic food insecurity and to ensure the availability of food to the villagers all year around. The food banks are managed by an epicenter committee responsible to collect and store the food produced in the communal gardens by the entire population of the epicenter. THP-Burkina has reported that this year again partners will produce enough grains, such as maize, millet and sorghum, to store a stock large enough to enable the population to guarantee access to food at all times during this year. It is encouraging to note that during this first quarter 2006 that all the food banks in the epicenters are full of grain and that everyone will have access to the food during the coming lean season.

In addition to the food production, THP-Burkina continues to support income-generating activities, especially for women, through the credit program to enable them generate income and savings for their families and to store enough food in their household granaries.

Rural Credit Banks

By the end of last year, THP-Burkina had succeeded in having two additional rural banks led by women be officially recognized by the national government as rural financial institutions. This brings the total of officially recognized rural banks in Burkina Faso to four; during 2006, three other epicenters intend to have their own rural banks. So far theses rural banks are functioning very well under the leadership of the women of the epicenters, under the supervision of the government thus serving all the villages to enable our partners to have access to credit on a permanent basis and enhance their self-reliance spirit.

Education and Adult Literacy

Adult literacy classes continue to grow: THP-Burkina Faso has expanded its functional adult literacy program to amore than 55 centers in the eleven epicenters where more than 5,000 men and women are taking literacy classes in their local languages. This program is contributing enormously to the awareness and education of our partners, especially women, who feel so proud of being literate, capable of reading and writing information that is useful to their lives. This includes signing their names on financial documents; reviewing information on their accounts in the rural bank, recording their credit, noting their savings at the bank and calculating the profit they make in the market.

Health and Hygiene

One of the most important measurements of achieving the MDGs is the reduction of infant mortality rate. THP-Burkina carries out a health and hygiene program in the health clinics in each epicenter. This program continues to have a significant impact on the health of the population, especially in protecting women’s health, reducing maternal mortality and children’s nutrition.  To support its work, THP-Burkina continues to train mid-wives and TBAs (Traditional Birth Attendants) to work in the epicenters and other villages. The midwives and the TBAs continue to help many women to safely deliver their babies; and they also provide the mothers with useful training in family planning, child nutrition and hygiene. THP-Burkina works in partnership with local governments to ensure that each epicenter is provided with a professional medical officer for medical services to the population, especially during this season where there is an outbreak of meningitis.  Pharmacies attached to the clinics are supplied by the local government with the basic drugs needed to combat the most prevalent diseases such as malaria, diarrhea, meningitis and typhoid.

One of the most essential needs for helping the population to have good hygiene, especially to prevent water-borne diseases, is to provide safe drinking water. THP-Burkina is mobilizing the people to work very closely with their local governments to obtain safe drinking water for their epicenters.

Reducing the Spread of HIV/AIDS

During this first quarter 2006,  THP-Burkina has increased its HIV/AIDS training program in educating the population of all the epicenters, including local government officials, on the program of “HIV/AIDS & Gender Inequality” as one of the most important issues for reducing the spread of the disease in the country.

In each epicenter, THP-Burkina has trained dozens of specialized HIV/AIDS Animators who are using THP’s manual called “HIV/AIDS & Gender Inequality" workshop to educate our rural partners about the role of gender inequality as the driving force of the spread of HIV/AIDS.

The investors who visited Burkina Faso were witnesses of a workshop where specialized animators demonstrated their skill in how they prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS. THP-Burkina reports on the very important impact that this workshop has had in changing the behavior of our partners, particularly the males who now accepted their responsibility to practice safe sex. As a result, the level of infections has dramatically dropped in all of our epicenters.