Category: Burkina Faso

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Update on the ‘Beoogo Tienbo’ Nursery School in Burkina Faso

Beoogo Tienbo is a walled village developed as a shelter for young women and children by our partner Keoogo. It is situated in an area 17km north of the capital Ouagadougou in District 9. The project offers a nursery school which is open to children living in the shelter with their mothers, as well as to children from the surrounding community.

The school is equipped with three large classrooms, a hall for afternoon snacks, a toilet block, a sports field, a sand pit, two swings, a slide, a climbing frame and two climbing horses. The kitchen of the shelter provides afternoon snacks for the children. The school is currently run by a trained nursery nurse and a nursery assistant.

The school welcomes children from 3 to 6 years of age and follows the French education system. The children are divided into ‘petite section’ (PS: 3-year-olds), ‘moyenne section’ (MS: 4-year-olds) and ‘grande section’ (GS: 5-year-olds). For the academic year 2019-2020, two levels are functioning: The ‘petite section’ and the ‘moyenne section’. The ‘grande section’ will open for the academic year 2020-2021. 

Thanks to the kind support of the Austin Bailey Foundation and other donors, we have purchased materials for the ‘petite section’ and the ‘moyenne section’ – which include 305 educational booklets for reading, maths, handwriting, drawing and painting; sixteen art kits and games, three musical instruments and two footballs.

The school has now been officially authorised by the Burkinabe Governor of the Centre Region. In addition, in January 2020, it was examined and approved by the Basic Education School Board of Ouagadougou.

Of the 52 children currently attending the school, 30 of them are street children now living in the shelter with their mothers. 

Three testimonies from parents of children enrolled at the nursery school

“My two boys are enrolled at the Keoogo nursery school in the ‘petite’ and ‘moyenne’ sections and I am very happy that they are there. In this school the teachers are friendly and professional. They are very attentive to the children and provide a family-friendly and warm welcome every day. It has met my expectations and since my boys have been going to this school, I have noticed changes in their behaviour. For example, they are more careful about the rules of personal hygiene and are more polite in their speech- saying “please dad” and “please mum” more often. I’m very proud of them.”

“Our daughter joined the nursery school in October 2019. To be honest, we have never seen her so motivated to go to school. She runs there every morning and is happy to see her friends and teachers. We have noticed that our daughter enjoys making things through play and learning to read. We really appreciate the teachers at the school as they are very good with all the children. We are truly very happy to have enrolled our daughter at the Keoogo nursery.”

“Following the closure of failing schools by the Burkinabè government, our daughter’s school was closed down. However, we were fortunate enough to find her a place at the Keoogo nursery school. Our daughter had spent a whole academic year at her previous school and having had that experience, we can clearly see that the Keoogo nursery school is very good and has exceeded our expectations. Everything that is done in this school contributes to the development of the child. The teachers are professional and in tune with the needs of each child. I also like the fact that the school has a place for singing and my daughter happily hums the songs she has learned at school, at home. She is well integrated and expresses herself well. She loves drawing and colouring and even questions people about the hygiene rules she has learned at school. I think that  Keoogo should open a primary school.”

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Keoogo Village for Street Girls and their Children in Burkina Faso.

In Burkina Faso we partner with a local organisation called Keoogo, which offers protection and rehabilitation services to children living on the streets. In Burkina Faso, poverty, intrafamily violence and early pregnancy can force girls aged between 12 to 18 years old to run away from home and end up living on the streets, where they can be exposed to further exploitation and violence.

Keoogo has recently built a community-led, walled village 17 km north of the capital Ouagadougou, to provide food, protection, health care, education and vocational training for girls living on the streets with their children. The village’s name is ‘Beoogo Tienbo’, which means ‘Hope for the Future’ in Moore, the main spoken language of Burkina Faso. 

The main objectives of the project are as follows: to improve the well-being and life-prospects of these girls and their children; to provide a 12 month programme of vocational training and skills development to increase the girls’ chances of integration into the local labour market; to introduce income-generating ‘micro-activities’ to ensure a reliable source of income for the girls and their children in the long-term. 

The village will also offer access to a nursery school, a playground, a food bank and other facilities to 6000 members of the surrounding community. To ensure post-funding sustainability and viability of the village, the project aims to develop agro-ecological activities through vocational training such as market gardening, bee-keeping and small-sized breeding as well as food service activities such as a bakery and a restaurant.

Providing an opportunity for these girls has already had an impact.

Quote from an 18 year old girl living in the village: “The Keoogo village allows me to live a family life. It gives meaning to my life.”

Quote from the mother of a 5 year old boy “Since we came to the village, my son has become more and more fulfilled. He has fun with others, eats well and has toys at his disposal. I am looking forward to seeing him go to the village nursery school in September.”

Due to the urgent need to provide these girls with the means to provide for themselves, the village has been open for a few months providing psychosocial counselling to the young mothers. However there is still a need for additional staff and more equipment to deliver the training component, as the current challenges for the project are in acquiring the equipment for the bakery, catering, weaving and sewing workshops. Increasing the food budget for the girls and their children is also another priority.

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New Horizons: Reaching Out To Street Girls In Burkina Faso

Photo of a group of girls in Burkina Faso

Keoogo is the only organisation in Ouagadougou, (the capital of Burkina Faso) that works with street girls as well as boys, and with children who are vulnerable to sexual abuse, violence and exploitation.

Given the International Children’s Trust’s experience in supporting programmes that significantly change the lives of children who have been involved in and harmed by their often violent experiences – we are delighted to reveal our new collaborative venture studying just what street girls are experiencing in Burkina Faso’s second city Bobo – Dilousi, with Keoogo.

Through this study, we will reveal what the immediate needs of street boys and girls are as well as the more complex background factors that have led them to surviving on the streets. This research will enable the International Children’s Trust and Keoogo to develop effective ways of getting girls and boys back to school (many have never attended in their lives) and give them access to vital services including for girls sexual, maternal and reproductive health so essential for them and those already in young motherhood. With our help, Keoogo will also be able to expand their capacity in delivering psycho-social support, which is so important in achieving family reintegration wherever possible.

The International Children’s Trust will help Keoogo fill a real gap in the support available for all street children in the region. Most services address physical needs, but do not tackle the more complex, emotional and psychological support needs of children who have experienced violence or other abuses on the streets and, for very young children who have nothing and nobody to rely on, this is an important step forward in Burkina Faso.

We are grateful to Comic Relief for providing funds for this initial research phase.

 

Tim, a girl found by Keoogo staff in the suburbs of Ouagadougou under the influence of drugs and clearly not accepted by her peers, who saw her as a troublemaker, is one example of Keoogo’s good social work with these exceptionally fragile and vulnerable children. 6 months after her initial contact with staff, Tim felt able to tell them about what had happened to her. At just 4 years, because she was born out of wedlock, she was given to her grandmother to be raised. At 11 years she had her first sexual encounter and tried to leave her home. The men in her grandmother’s house tied her up and severely beat her to stop her leaving. She nevertheless continued to escape and make sexual contact with older men until at 13 she was given to another relative to deal with her challenging behaviour. This younger grandmother sent Tim to work in the market and there she was initiated into prostitution by a girlfriend. Her relatives dealt with this by tying her up and beating her, but after 2 months she left to join her market friends and lived off prostitution for a year. Her village threatened to kill Tim if she tried to return and her father’s family disowned her. However Keoogo staff helped Tim rehabilitate within a residential care home and traced her mother, and helped mother and daughter re-establish contact. With care and professional counselling she has turned her life around and is now training to be a seamstress and is looking forward to practicing her skills.