Rehabilitate Bereba Library to honor David Pace

Here is the translated summary of the April meeting of an ABVBF team (FAVL partners) with the PDS and SG of the commune of Béréba.  As part of the relaunch of the reopening of the libraries of Béréba and Dimikuy, a team from the association Friends of Village Libraries of Burkina Faso (ABVBF) visited the town hall of Béréba. This mission aimed to meet the first officials of the Béréba town hall, in particular the president of the special delegation/PDS and the secretary general/S G, and to discuss with them in order to find a way to reopen the said libraries. This exchange meeting kept all its promises. At the start of the meeting, the president of ABVBF Sanou Dounko gave a summary of the general situation of libraries. Then, he focused particularly on the difficulties which caused the closure of the two libraries and the various processes initiated for their reopenings which ended in failure. It should be noted that it is with an attentive ear that the PDS and the SG listened to the president of ABVBF. They felt very upset by the situation because it means delay for the village and in particular for the students. Thus, the PDS and the SG asked the ABVBF president to agree together to take up the challenge. To do this, the president of ABVBF proposed the idea of signing a partnership memorandum of understanding between the town hall and ABVBF which will facilitate the reopening of the two libraries. At the end of this first meeting, 3 points were proposed:
- Develop a partnership memorandum of understanding for the monitoring and management of the two libraries.
- Develop a recruitment notice for a library manager.
- ABVBF takes care of the monthly motivation of the manager from June to December 2024 to allow the municipality to provide a line in the municipal budget. The PDS and SG say they are very satisfied with this meeting not only because they have more information on the two libraries, but also, the reopening of these two libraries will further boost the education of the children of the Béréba commune.

FAVL is hopeful this agreement will move forward. The security situation in Bereba has greatly improved and there have been no new attacks in the village since November 2022.