Noon Meal Improves Girls' Learning in Burkina Faso

During my visit to Burkina Faso in December, I met with administrators, teachers and students of the middle/secondary school for girls.  I continue to be impressed with the organization, discipline and seriousness with which everyone views this school in terms of the quality of education it offers to its students.  Because of its very positive reputation, there is increasing competition for students to be enrolled there.  With 850 students this year, NEEED hopes to add additional classrooms to accomodate a maximum of 1000 students.  This will necessitate expansion of the cafeteria as well.

The school year is off to a positive start at the Lycee Modern de l’Amitie (LMA), with the enrollment of 850 middle school and secondary school students in 17 classrooms, maintaining the standard of a maximum of 50 students per class.   

The majority of village girls who qualify for middle and secondary school in the project region entered primary school with assistance from the Lambs Support Village Girls’ Education in Burkina Faso Project (on the GlobalGiving web site) also run by Association NEEED. This project is the foundation/engine, for village girls’ education in northern Burkina Faso, without which very few village girls even enter school. The initial purchase of a lamb enables the enrollment of 6 year-old girls in village primary schools. Their parents raise and sell their lambs, and buy school materials and new lambs, each year to support their daughters’ education through 13 years of schooling (with the exception of school lunches, the cost of which is beyond parent’s reach).  Your support for the Lambs Support
Village Girls’ Education Project allows village girls to enter school and ultimately achieve 13 years of education. Their academic performance has been phenomenal, their parents’ support outstanding.  The Lambs Support Village Girls’ Education in Burkina Faso Project needs your donations in order to continue enrolling young girls in school.  Please check it out.

As a testament to the academic achievements of “our” girls, in partnership with two generous partners, Friends of Burkina Faso is sponsoring seven village girls in post secondary training this year: in nursing, midwifery, teacher training and medicine.

At a recent ceremony honoring the support for girls’ education at the primary, middle and secondary, and post-secondary levels in the project region, a representative of the secondary school girls (who initially entered primary school with the support of the Lambs Support Village Girls’ Education Project) proclaimed, “Without the assistance from Association NEEED and its partners (that’s you!), many girls would be destined to domestic work,
field work and to be given in marriage at a young age.  Many girls, women of tomorrow, would have no possibility to contribute to the development of Burkina Faso.”

On behalf of Association NEEED, and especially “our” extraordinary girls, our sincere Thank You.  Your past and continuing support of these girls enables them to enter and progress through school with the purchase of a lamb; and to have an adequate meal each day in middle/secondary school.

The Lycee Moderne de l'Amitie (LMA, the combined middle/secondary school) reports the following year-end results for its students:  70% of all students successfully passed national exams, qualifying them to proceed to the next class. 

Unfortunately, Burkina Faso experienced political unrest for much of the spring semester which forced the closing of schools for extended periods of time during the semester.  This disrupted the educational system throughout the country and impacted teachers' ability to adequately cover subject matter in their classes. 

Given these conditions, however, students of the LMA still outperformed other middle school students in the region.  Forty eight percent of LMA students passed the BEPC (the exit exam at the end of middle school which determines if a student may go on to secondary school) versus 30% of students at all other middle schools in the region.