Girl-centered books to 60 village libraries

We received only a few donations for this project in December 2022, so we shall purchase and distribute about 100 girl-oriented books for the libraries that are open, in January 2023. 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 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.

Dear donor,

FAVL continues to support community libraries in Burkina Faso with book distributions, where we favor girl-centered books. We also have focused also in Burkina Faso on our project to print 10,000 copies of 50 titles in our "local authors" series. 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 Bereba and Dimikuy, as well as to other libraries in Tuy province. Almost all of these books are authored by young women of Houndé town, and their themes are relevant to young women.

We have also been distributing books to libraries in the Tuy region.

We would like to thank you for your continued support.

Links:

• FAVL website

Hello friends,

FAVL staff in Burkina Faso recently attended the biennial book fair, held in Bobo-Dioulasso in the southwest. The fair was fairly small, but there were some vendors, and so FAVL staff purchased about 10 books for distribution in the libraries.  Most of the books were purchased from the publisher Ganndal, from Guinea, and a local publishing house of Burkina Faso writers, MOTS D'ELLES. During the fair, FAVL librarians also leared how to protect book covers with transparent sticky book cover material, and so they are starting to learn how to best apply that to new books and older books.

We have only received modest donations on this project. Rest assured that donations from other sources continue, and FAVL tries to actively support libraries with those funds.

As part of the support for libraries supported by FAVL and the local association "Amis des Bibliothèques de Villages du Burkina Faso / ABVBF", the national coordinator of FAVL Sanou Dounko visited on January 5, 2022, two large bookshops (Jeunesse d'Afrique and Mercury ) which are all located in Ouagadougou. During these visits, he paid for twenty children's books. The works deal with several subjects such as: storytelling, friendship, travel, life in society, fiction, academic success, education, insecurity, the importance of reading, children and law and humor. These books will be delivered to one of the libraries where the manager is dynamic. These books are suitable for young people and will allow users of the said beneficiary library to discover the contents of the works, to share the ideas and opinions of writers.

Hello friends! We did not receive donations for this project during the past several months, so no big activities to report. FAVL continues of course to support 38 libraries and a variety of reading programs in Burkina Faso. We look forward to making books purchases later this year, so any spare funds you might have for donations would be much appreciated. We are including several photos taken in August from the libraries. Many are thriving, and see regular readers. So, having a steady stream of new books is important for promoting the joy of reading. We look forward to purchased more girl-centered and women-authored books!