By Tony Kaye | Member of AVN Management Committee
The 2010/11 construction season in the Sahel is now drawing to a close, as the rains will be starting next month. The results are very promising, and demonstrate how successfully the program is growing. The 400 or so NV masons and apprentices have built this season, since September 2010, the equivalent of 1800 linear meters of vaults in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Senegal, namely 124 buildings made up in total of 255 vaults, each of an average length of 7 meters and the standard internal width of 3,25 meters:
- in Burkina Faso: 82 buildings (= 130 vaults)
- in Mali: 37 buildings ( = 102 vaults)
- in Senegal : 5 large buildings (= 23 vaults).
This season has also seen the first NV house built for a client using micro-credit facilities organised by the NGO Entrepeneurs du monde in collaboration with AVN. This is a small house in the village of Koper, near Dano, Burkina Faso, for Mme Sophie Somda (see photos). We hope that this initiative will encourage other villagers to make use of affordable micro-credit loans to help obtain better housing for their families.
In Europe, the growing reputation of our NGO Association la voute nubienne (AVN) has recently been recognised by the award of the Social Enterprise Trophy (International category) to Thomas Granier, co-founder of AVN. This trophy, organised by the French newspaper La Tribune, with the support of the bank BNP-Paribas, is awarded to the most promising social enterprise organizations in France - AVN was selected by a jury of professionals from 120 other candidates for this award.
Despite this growing international recognition for our work, we still need all the help and support we can get to maintain the momentum of growth in the Program.... there are still millions of families in the Sahel living under terrible housing conditions. We have made a small dent in the problem, but we are still in the early stages of creating a sustainable market in decent, safe, housing for rural families.
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