The reintegration of the thirty-six young mothers into their families after their training at the village is going very well. All these young women continue to be monitored by the training manager and an educator from Keoogo and this will continue for two years. The six young mothers who received training in baking are still pursuing their businesses. Two of them have gone back to school in the evenings to take the equivalent of GCSEs (BEPC) and if they pass, they will be able to progress to higher level exams/vocational training if they wish to. Both these young mothers have paid their own fees using the profits from the sale of their cakes. The other four young mothers continue to do well with their cake sales and now manage to support their children and pay for their school fees.
Out of the thirty-six young mothers who have left the village, twelve are baking and selling cakes, one is involved in catering, two are working in nurseries as monitors, one is doing an internship in a local nursery, one is working in a pharmaceutical depot in Ouagadougou and another is working in a provincial pharmacy. Three have become community health workers in health and social care centres, three are involved with sewing work, with support from Keoogo, seven are continuing their schooling and five have got married and live with their husbands outside Ouagadougou. In addition, one young mother has become an agroecology facilitator and is employed by Keoogo in the village. She is currently in charge of training fourteen new girls in market gardening. The poultry farming activity was temporarily suspended after the girls left the village because maintenance became difficult. We are in contact with Vétérinaire sans Frontières to restart the activity and continue training.
There are twenty-two new young mothers in the village at the moment – six are enrolled in high school, including three in the examination class for the preliminary certificate and three in the intermediate class, two more are training outside the village, one in community health and one as a pharmacy auxiliary. They leave in the morning and return to the village in the evening. The other fourteen young mothers are doing market gardening at the moment. The next round of baking training has not yet started.