Girls' Computer Literacy & Leadership Program

FAVL and its partner organization has not hosted any training workshops in last 3 months, partly because of the security situation and partly because schools have been closed for summer. We hope to host another workshop in October.

The FAVL-supported libraries in Burkina Faso have had several tough years. The civil war, which started in 2016, has grown rapidly, and has pitted various Islamist-oriented groups (whose first actions are to close schools and insist that schooling be in Arabic, a language that few people in the country speak) against the Burkinabè military (which overthrew the democratic government in 2022, and suspended local government). The upshot of the conflict is that 21 of 38 libraries have been closed. Our partner organization in Burkina Faso, ABVBF, continues to visit libraries that remain open, in secure areas. The office in 2022 pivoted to a major initiative, the production of 10,000 copies of 50 illustrated books written and illustrated by residents of the town of Houndé. The books have been distributed to libraries that are open. This year our goal is to produce and distribute 50,000 copies. We are also exploring how we can expand the variety of books produced. We’d love to have a young adult science fiction series for readers in Burkina Faso.

Over in Ghana, CESRUD, FAVL’s local partner, continues to support the three libraries of Sumbrungu, Sherigu, and Gowrie-Kunkua. The libraries receive numerous visitors every week. Kitengesa Community Library and the Uganda Community Libraries Association are continuing to offer regular services.

Friends of African Village Libraries (FAVL) has been involved in a variety of activities in Burkina Faso to promote literacy and education. For example, FAVL has been working to expand access to books and educational resources in rural communities by establishing community libraries and providing training and support to local librarians. They have also been involved in initiatives to promote reading and learning among children, such as organizing reading clubs and sponsoring reading competitions. In addition, FAVL has been working to improve access to technology in rural communities by establishing computer centers and providing training in basic computer skills. Overall, FAVL's efforts have had a significant impact on improving literacy and education in Burkina Faso, particularly in underserved rural areas. Because of the conflict, many libraries and programs have been suspended. Nevereless, FAVL continues to support the activities of the various projects, in libraries that are accessible.

The Houndé multimedia center has been producing new books at a steady clip, many of them authored by young women of the region.

The FAVL-supported libraries in Burkina Faso have had several tough years. A civil war, which started in 2016, has grown rapidly, and has pitted various Islamist-oriented groups (whose first actions are to close schools and insist that schooling be in Arabic, a language that few people in the country speak) against the Burkinabè military (which overthrew the democratic government in January 2022, suspended local government, and then perpetrated another coup within military ranks late-September of this year). The upshot of the conflict is that 12 libraries have been closed.  The FAVL representative in Burkina Faso, Sanou Dounko, continues to visit libraries that remain open, in secure areas. The office pivoted to a major initiative, the production of 10,000 copies of 50 illustrated books written and illustrated by residents of the town of Houndé. The books have been distributed to libraries that are open. This coming year our goal is to produce and distribute 50,000 copies. We are also exploring how we can expand the variety of books produced. We’d love to have a young adult science fiction series for readers in Burkina Faso.

This project did not received donations in 2022, and so consequently we carried out no trainings in the latter half of the year. We look forward to more computer-training workshops in 2023 should funding permit.

Dear donor,

We would like to make progress in organizing computing classes for young women, but unfortunately the security situation in Burkina Faso continues to deteriorate. Over the past year the communities in the Houndé area have been attacked several times. The gendarmerie of Houndé itself, where our small computer center is located, was attacked just last week. This  insecurity makes it hard for FAVL and partner personnel to carry out activities. Moreover, the military government, which took power in a coup d'état in January 2022, suspended local civilian leadership, replacing it with military appointed local leadership. These leaders have little legitimacy and authority, and are unable to act as good partners. So progress has slowed. We continue to regularly reach out to local partners, both informally and in government, to try to assess when we might be able to make more progress.

In the meantime, FAVL has focused in Burkina Faso on our project to print 10,000 copies of 50 titles in our "local authors" series, many of them authoried by young women who have participated in our training activities in Houndé. These are short illustrated books for young readers, photocopied. We anticipate finishing these in September, and distributing 250 copies to each of the libraries in Tuy province, around the Houndé area.

We thank you for your continued support during these troubling times for Burkina Faso.

Links:

• FAVL website

This project has not received many donations over the last three months, so we have not done a regular training in the Hounde multi-media center recently. So there is nothing to report on that front. We hope you will continue to donate however and we at FAVL look forward to more trainings.

We did instead have a training in how to protect books using transparent plaasatic sticky book cover material. This is available for purchae in Burkina Faso for about $2 per meter, enough to cover 6 books. So reasonably cost-effective. The team learned to cover the books in a training in Bobo-Dioulasso, and then applied it in the office in Ouagadougou. They are looking forward to training librarians in how to do this work.