Clean Water for Rural Villagers in Burkina Faso

Dear BARKA Supporters,

The last 3 months were full of very intensive work on the ground for BARKA Foundation.

We implemented a project to empower high school girls to stay in school through menstrual hygiene management. It's hard to believe, but something as natural as a woman's menstrual cycle can mean the end of a girl's education in a country like Burkina Faso. It's a taboo subject, and girls aren't informed about menstruation until it happens. Schools have no resources to support these girls who are often shunned and humiliated. BARKA worked with two powerful female teachers to lead a series of sensitization trainings that reached more than 2000 students in Fada. The project was a huge success and will continue in the Fall when schools resume classes.

BARKA's theatre troupe also performed a new play to promote improved agricultural techniques to help smallscale farmers deal with the effects of climate change. Post-performance debates were lively and full of engaged dialogue by the local population who made commitments to using these new simple yet powerful innovations. This project was also a major success- BARKA's 2nd "hit" in the domain of theatre sensitization.

As if that's not all, BARKA Foundation took important initial steps to begin selling water filters in the rural market. This is a project to create a sustainable business to produce, sell and distribute ceramic water filters. BARKA is partnered with a local ceramics company and 2iE, a water research institute, both based in Ouagadougou.

In our first session to introduce and sell filters to a rural village, we gave a presentation of how they work and explained the benefits and need for water filtration. Out of the 20 families who were present at the meeting, 12 of them purchased filters- that's 60%! This was a very auspicious debut and provided further proof that rural villagers will purchase filters for health reasons, even at a time of year when income is scarce.

We'd like to thank you for your support of BARKA's work in Burkina Faso and want you to know that your financial contributions are going to good use to create resilience, empowerment and prosperity for some of the most vulnerable people on the globe. Barka!