Girls' Computer Literacy & Leadership Program

Between May 23 and 24, the multimedia center of Houndé is hosting a two-day workshop for 10 young women. The overall goals of the workshop are to strengthen writing and drawing skills and teach participants how to use basic software and e-mail. In addition to achieving these specific goals, the workshop also will encourage teamwork, the love of reading, female solidarity, and empowerment. The workshop will provide each participant with a notebook and a pen, and there will be two computers for the participants to share. The workshop will begin with a discussion of computer software’s importance in the world today and a basic overview of various computer functions. After lunch, the participants will learn how to use Microsoft Word and Excel, and then will spend three hours working in groups on a writing project in Word. For the last hour of the workshop, they will peer review each other’s work and propose design ideas for the next day. The second day of the workshop will begin with more practice on Word and Excel. After lunch, they will learn how to use Publisher. They will finish the workshop by putting their own texts from the day before on the software. The total budget for this workshop is 160,000F, about $300. This cost is split between meals, housing, notebooks, transportation, and instructors.

In other FAVL news in Burkina Faso, between May 16th to May 20th, the award ceremonies for the reading program “Leaders are Readers” took place in the Korsimoro, Kaya, Kongoussi, Sabcé, Rouko, Karaba and Boni libraries. This program was initiated by the library of the United States Embassy in Burkina Faso in collaboration with Friends of African Village Libraries (FAVL). Its main objectives are to encourage students to frequent libraries and to read. This year, 274 students participated, their grades ranging from middle school to high school. During the three months of the program, participants were able to read at their own pace. The best reader of this year is a student of the 6th grade of Rouko County High School, and he read 265 books. Students were very appreciative and excited about the program at the award ceremonies.

Participants shared their thoughts on books they read:

• Issaka in Korsimoro liked the book The Wind of Love by Joël Ouédraogo. The author discusses the behavior of schoolchildren who love each other and don’t listen to advice from their parents. As a consequence, they found themselves in messy situations.
• Soungalo in Kaya loved the book  The Pieces of Wood of God by Sembene Ousmane. Through this book, he discovered that for a while African workers were paid poorly during construction work in Dakar. He believes that hard work should equal fair wages.
• Monique in Karaba did not like the book Baba the Rapper Student by Koura K Sylvie. She believes that parents must take care of their children, and she was frustrated when Baba joined a bad crowd in high school, became a spoiled child, and ended up in jail.
• Abdoul in Sabcé liked the book  The Academic Success of Becherou. The author tells the story of a student from a poor family who strives to be the first of his class among the children of rich families. This student held the head of his class during his first class of school and won all the high school awards. Abdoul said he felt personally encouraged after reading of the novel.

This month the Houndé multimedia center (CMH) finished editing and will distribute two new books authored by young women from Houndé. La ruse de Sonsonni le lièvre  is by Tuina Sarah, a 10th grader in Lycée Provincial de Boromo, and Le prince et la fille laide by Fofana Adjaratou a high school senior in the Lycée Municipal de Houndé.  Both books are illustrated by Bazoun Robert, who works in the school district.

These CMH books are distributed in all FAVL supported libraries. The hope is that by promoting short books written by young women, more young women will be inspired to continue their schooling and aspire to professional accomplishment. The young women also get exposure to using computers in the multimedia center.

The Girls computer literacy program has not received sufficient funding for another set of workshops.  However, the Hounde multimedia center (FAVL-BF local book production unit and small computer lab) continues to operate regularly and has produced a new series of four books authored by Koura Sylvie: Békila va à l’école, Békila fête la fin de la saison pluvieuse, Békila voyage, Le retour de Békila du village, and Békila apprend le lavage des mains. Sylvie also really likes reading the Harry Potter series!

What else is new at FAVL Burkina Faso?

• Sebba Community Library in eastern Burkina Faso has received visits and training from FAVL staff. the security situation in the area has deteriorated, unfortunately. but the last visit, in early November 2018, was productive, with the FAVl-BF staff person speaking before the village assembly about the importance of the library.
• We have received a generous donation to work with the village of Koho to help start a library to honor the memory of the donor's beloved godmother, Clarice Weiniger. The mayor of Houndé (the rural commune in which Koho is located) has received our initial proposal and budget estimate. He and his staff, and councilors from the Koho community, will talk with the director of the gold mine that operates near Koho and which is a partner for many village projects. The Rural Council's budget session was Monday, November 20th. They were supposed to have discussed the project at that time. We have not heard back from them yet.
• We are proceeding to re-open the community library in Ouargaye. The mayor has been unwilling to establish a budget line for a staff person to be the librarian, preferring instead to use a succession of interns, national service personnel, or "volunteers" (often someone from the community who has finished secondaray school and wants some professional work experience, expecting to receive informal cash payments from the office of the mayor). Such a volunteer has now been recruited by the mayor, and will be trained by FAVL-BF staff in the coming months.
• The FAVL-BF staff visited the library of Niankorodougou in the far south of Burkina Faso. Everything was operating normally and the librarian is paid regularly from the mayor's office. They have started a reading club!
• The FAVL-BF team is continuing conversations with CENALAC, the government library support organisation. CENALAC has been allocated a budget of 500,000 FCFA per library (about $1000) per year for supporting library operations. They are not transparent how they spend those funds, however. We would like the 34 FAVL-supported libraries to become part of that network and be recognized as community libraries by CENALAC. The new director of CENLAC was open to the idea but pessimistic that the government would increase funding.

The Houndé multimedia center is now functioning on a part-time basis, and FAVL staff Nelly Winkhoum and Boulguissa Zongo hosted two small workshops for six students in May and June 2018. 

Here is the team report for May (translated from French):

On May 19, 2018, a team of FAVL carried out a mission, with the aim of initiating the girls of Douhoun and Karaba to the computer tool and also checking the functioning of the computers present in the center and making an inventory of books. The team welcomed the girls from Douhoun and Karaba, some of whom were accompanied by their parents. The training took place on the premises of the CMH in the presence of our FAVL focal point in Houndé. It came in addition to the activities of the CMH. The objective of this workshop is to give beginners basic training in computer use, to enable people who know how to manipulate the machine to consolidate their knowledge and to have answers to their various questions. For this first training session, the girls were not only amazed, captivated, but followed the lessons attentively and took notes. During the practical exercises, they were all volunteers to write a word or a sentence through this tool which is the computer.

Here is the team report for June (translated from French):

On Friday, June 8th, a team of FAVL went to Houndé for the second phase of the introduction to the girls computer tool. The workshop was held at the CMH on Saturday 9th from 8.30am to 3pm and Sunday from 8.30am to 10.30am.
Through this workshop, girls learned the basics of computer science to use Windows computers. They also learned how to use the keyboard and mouse, how to create Word documents, and how to store them in folders, move and duplicate them. This workshop was closed with an evaluation; and from this evaluation we can deduce satisfactory results. As the CMH is open, they can continue to train and perfect themselves.

What is new at FAVL-Burkina Faso?

• Fifteen new photos books were printed and delivered in March 2018 to most of the libraries that we support in Burkina Faso. Picture of the books on the booksehelf in Sebba Library is below.
• Libraries received 20 copies of a kid’s magazine called Kidzymag that is filled with short stories and fun games for kids to play.
• Many libraries received donations of books; one of the gratifying things about working with libraries is to see how many “friends” are out there willing to support reading.
• Libraries held their regularly scheduled monthly meetings in March- on the agenda are two reading contests being held in some of the libraries – one supported by the US Embassy, the other by Catholic Relief Services.
• Our new Biblio-Mobile-Penelope moto-tricycle service is moving along (photo below) and will be ready to operate soon.
• The Multimedia Center in Hounde has been producing many books this year- sixteen Kikirou stories in the Fall 2017, and six more children’s books written and illustrated by people from Tuy Province. The illustrator Robert Bazoum (below) is doing a spectacular job).
• FAVL Director Michael Kevane met with Stanislas Ouanré, Minister of Education, in March 2018 to see about possible collaboration for establishing more libraries.
• Lots more going on every day; read our blog for more information.

The Girls' Computer Literacy program now has sufficient funds that we will be planning a series of sessions in the coming months, so watch for the next report!