Tomorrow's Child

There are a few foreign NGOs operating in my village, but of all of them, Catholic Relief Services (CRS) is one of the most active and most visible. They're an American NGO, and they have a couple of projects in Burkina right now. One of them is called Beoog Biiga (Mooré for Tomorrow's Child), and as it happens, I am in one of two provinces where they're operating.

Most of CRS's staff in Burkina is Burkinabe, and I've found everyone that I worked with to be exceptionally motivated and competent. They have one individual called an animator in each department. (Burkina is divided into regions, which are divided into provinces, which are divided into departments, which are divided into villages.) Our animator is named Mamadou, and he's great. We went to a training through CRS together in February, and after that, I helped him to give a related training to local parents' associations about things like children's rights and gender-based violence. It went well, although he kept trying to get me to lead it all in Mooré. Yeah, right. 

Soap mixing

What does Beoog Biiga do? It's a joint project with CRS and the USDA to reduce malnutrition in primary-school age children in the Bam and Sanmatenga provinces. They supply school lunches for all the primary schools that they work with, and they installed nice hand-washing stations at each school and trained students to use them. Beyond that, they work with parents to try to increase student retention, especially with girls, and they teach students about better health and hygiene practices to improve their attendance. Finally, they do microfinance projects with women to help them support their families.

When I told Mamadou awhile ago that I was teaching some women from my village to make soap, he was really excited and asked me if I would do the same thing with the women he was working with. It finally happened last week. He did a 3-day training module for women mentors at a nearby primary school. It's for a new program that they're organizing, where each woman is assigned to 5 or 6 female students to make sure that they are keeping up their attendance and their grades and to help them resolve family issues. I went with Katie, another volunteer from the same department, and her friend Michael, who had come to visit.

We got there on day 2. We helped to lead sessions on protection of victims of violence and on children's rights. The third day was a celebration for the women to show what they had learned to the community. A bunch of CRS staff from Ouaga came, as did representatives from local schools and village administration. The women performed a traditional dance and song for everyone, and then each woman was presented with a new bike to use as mentors. I gave a presentation to everyone about the process and benefits of soap making, and then someone else gave a presentation on mentoring, and then someone else demonstrated the improved cookstoves that one woman learned to make that halve the amount of wood needed to prepare a meal. There were also a bunch of long winding speeches that had to be repeated in French and in Mooré in there, plus a skit demonstrating the role of the mentor.

The actual soap-making didn't come until the end of the day. The process isn't difficult, just there is a lot of waiting time in between steps. We mixed the soap, made of lye dissolved in water, mixed with shea butter, coconut oil, and perfume. It had to sit for a few hours to harden to a consistency that it could be shaped into balls, and we had to leave before it was done because it took over an hour to bike back to my site from the village. The women seemed excited about it, though, and several more have asked me since then if I would teach them to make soap too. Success!

Michael, Mamadou, Katie, and Mariko

Overall, I'm really impressed with CRS's organization and competence. Their staff members have been extremely kind to me. I feel lucky to have them, because it makes my work as a volunteer a lot easier.

More pictures here.