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The Yoann Foundation: helping disabled women and children

This project supports SDC11668b women in need, particularly mothers of disabled children, or women who are, themselves, disabled. Numbers are currently 20 women and 15 children.

Help is given in a variety of ways: either direct financial

help, food aid or help to start up a small business. The women gather regularly, with their children, at the Franciscan Friary in Ouagadougou where they are given the opportunity to meet

with and talk to the team of volunteers who are administering

this fund. Part of the remit of this fund is to ensure that all women and children are given the opportunity to meet socially,

over a meal, in order for them to get to know each other, and therefore to help, support and befriend each other. Women who are disabled or who have disabled children very quickly become isolated from the rest of society. Therefore, bringing them together regularly, both in order to receive their aid and also to share in a big meal socially, has been a fantastic way of helping them to feel part of a loving family, accepted and understood, supported and loved.

Protecting and educating young women and girls

About a two-hour drive to the east of Ouagadougou is the Catholic Diocese of
Koupéla where we currently have three projects: 1) a refuge providing protection
to 27 young women, 2) putting girls through primary school and 3) putting girls
through secondary school.

A refuge: Young women, particularly from the

more isolated villages, are very much at risk from
being forced into a marriage too young, often to
men much older than themselves. Les Amis funds a
refuge to which young women can turn if they feel
they have no option but to run away from home for
whatever reason. At this refuge they are housed,
fed, educated and trained in skills to enable them to
make a living for themselves.

Primary school: the 20 girls we are putting through primary school are children

whose parents cannot afford to pay the fees. The cost for putting just one girl

through primary school for a year is just £45. This covers not only the fees but also

the cost of absolutely everything they need such as equipment, uniform (where there

is one) and food.

Secondary school: the 10 girls we are putting
through secondary school are there because they are
either orphans, lack a parent or have some other
reason which makes being at home difficult. At this
school they are housed, fed and educated at a cost
of just £200 per year per girl.

Further east, in the small town of Fada N’Gourma, we helped to finance a new building for a small primary school. Their previous accommodation comprised six classrooms, four toilets and a kitchen. We were happy to assist them with a new building which now provides them with a meeting room, a library, an administrative office and ICT provision.

Cows and Donkeys!

Les Amis has made funds available for the purchasing of livestock. This came about since it came to our attention that a young man with whom Gillie is in regular contact was anxious about his parents. It transpired that the cause of his anxiety was that both of his parents’ cows had died, leaving his parents to plough and work their land by hand in order to feed the family. The loss of crucial livestock is a very serious blow in a land where, averagely speaking, people depend upon the food that they can grow in order to live. Land worked by hand quite simply isn’t going to yield the same amount of food as land worked by cows or donkeys, and this can mean the difference between eating and starving. Given that a fully grown cow or donkey can be prohibitively expensive for farmers, and that both of these animals are critical to the lives and well-being of the people of Burkina Faso, we are delighted by this new aspect of the work of Les Amis and to being able to make a difference not only to families, but also communities with the purchase of these animals.