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A DIFFERENT WORLD ? Where people can feed themselves and show solidarity

'Pour un autre monde'(POUAM) in Burkina Faso 2006-2016

WHERE, WHAT, WHY ?

Founded in 2005, operating in Burkina Faso since 2006, in answer to a request by a Burkinabé citizen building a school in his village, POUAM has worked on 38 different projects and acquired know how and expertise in :

• Funding and setting up school or class libraries in the 18 first partner schools and in our own yet informal training center ( CEPARTAS = Centre d'experimentation et de partage de techniques adaptées au Sahel : Centre for experimenting and sharing Sahel adapted techniques)

• Training teachers, pupils and volunteer parents in the 27 partner schools and 2 partner high schools in sahelian compost making, organic vegetables growing, limited watering, water harvesting, shrubbery and tree planting . Thus we improve both the children's and families' daily food ration and restore the degraded soil, sterilized by 40 years of drought (production of humus) in the hope of fighting desertification.

• Training 10 people to make 2mm iron thread mesh rolls to keep the cattle away from the gardens and allow the hedges to grow ( and feed the cattle in the dry season). This created 10 self sustained jobs in the 5 schools endowed withe the hand mesh making machines. Profits are managed by the parents' associations and /or the school boards ( COSUGES : comité de suivi et de gestion)

• Installing 4 fuel powered grain mills, training the millers and helps, and setting up 2 part time jobs of lady controllers per school ( 16 sources of revenue). The women's association (AME : association des mères éducatrices, association of mothers as educators) manages the facility in each school.The mills were set up to alleviate their daily chores and enable young girls to go on going to school instead of pounding millet, sorghum or corn every day as soon as they are 10 years old.

• Starting 3 sewing workshops in 3 schools with old robust second hand foot pedal machines collected in Alsace, recycled and and shipped overseas.

• Training the school cooks to use solar cookers (paraboles first, then polyedre 'cookit' devices) to save wood as felling and burning trees contribute to desertification in 10 schools.

• Fostering 41 pupils or students in Ouagadougou,Bobo-Dioulasso, Boulsa, Koudougou,Pobe Mengao and Titao. Léa became a fully trained medical doctor with a PHD ( 'very honorable and jury's congratulations') in November 2013 ; Rodrigue got his Diploma in October 2013 in Shipping and Customs operations, and many more go up the education scale. Ismael graduated in 2015 and just got his frst job, Alain Raphael is taking a Master’s in Sustainable development economics while caring for Yassia, Soumaïla and Issouf, all from Titao, now studying at Koudougou University.

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• Giving a hand to some of the 50 ladies sponsored by AEEPT for a mico-credit loan creating income giving activities.

We chose to work with school pupils as a primary 'target' because, most of us being educators, we believe that what is learned at school can print something in a pupil's mind and make her or him a more responsible adult.

Living in Alsace, a rich french province with water pollution problems, an ageing nuclear power plant and a lively 'bio' network (organic), we focused on agro-ecological techniques to try and bring our contribution to stop desertification while teaching french pupils a form of active solidarity (and reflexion on their own energy consuming behaviour) .Our first activities were in Sri Lanka after the dreaded 2004 tsunami. Coming to Burkina Faso was pure chance, remaining and working there 'in depth' is deliberate and answers to real local needs.

Our latest mill in Salla, October 2013 (the house was financed and built by the parents)

OUR CURRENT PROJECTS   :

1. PROJECT CEPARTAS (Centre d’expérimentation et de partage de techniques adaptées au Sahel) :

We started it in 2011 on temporary premises rented 25 000 F CFA / month (38 euros,) ; the 500 m2 yard was turned into a pedagogical site with 4 compost trenches, a vegetables and cereals garden, a few hens, our own donkey ('Transporteur'), cart and 2 water barrels.There is now a three-wheeler cart.The 4 rooms house was turned into a training centre with housing facilities for the driver and volunteers, an embryo library (2000 books, in french, english and national languages), a seed bank for trees and vegetables.

The terrace is altogether lounge, kitchen, dining room and conference room. The solar plate enables us to read at night and use 2 computers at the same time. There are also individual solar lamps with battery loading devices for telephones.It soon became too small to welcome would-be trainees ( sometimes 65 volunteers at the same time !!!). So we decided to get our own grounds...

In 2012 the NGO bought a 3 hectares piece of land on the dust road between Titao and Hargo AND was given a city piece of ground on the road to Salla and the North West of the province, near the

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present provisory premises. The administrative details will soon be settledwithe the new city council . We are ready to start making anti-erosion stone works (half moons, mini dykes, etc.) digging a bouli ( pond filled by the yearly rains and used as a water reservoir), planting the first trees and hedges, with our own mesh protections for a start. Two fulani style huts are already built to shelter people working there before the proper buildings are erected. In the city the enclosure was completed and trees were planted for the hedge in October 2013.

We have contacts with another NGO : Development Workshop that specializes in compressed mud bricks building, plans are already drawn for the city building. Mr. David Niampa is their master-mason and teacher in Titao and he uses every project opportunity to train unemployed young people, which suits us. The vaulted construction without wood (scarce) or sheet iron (expensive and terribly hot) will provide a naturally climatized house and help keep the material and people in better shape ( colder in the hot dry season, warmer in the cold dry season) .

Why 2 sites :

• We need a real agricultural ground for training people and demonstrating the wide array of organic and anti-destification techniques. We also need housing facilities for people may come from a place 100 km away and stay for weekly periods.

• The library and the multi-media room offer facilities to pupils, students and litterate Titao people. They will not walk the 3 km to the rural grounds at night to read, do homeworks or access the internet.

It will be a 3 years project costing yearly roughly 40 000 euros in investment and 15 000 euros to run .

There will be no water adduction anywhere to start with ;The city premises will be dependant on the block public fountain, ( that's were the donkey, cart and barrels come in useful), 8 to 12 barrels a week for garden and personnal use. Later the ONEA will bring water pipes.

• The rural facilities will first benefit from the bouli,that will be dug in march 2017, but not much water might remain . We do not yet know how long it will keep in the dry season and any way there will soon be an imperious need for more water, thus we plan to have a deep well drilled by the KOUPELA OCADES for 10 000 euros (85 to 135 m deep?), with a hand pump.

Having water is all right but you also need sanitation and obviously there will be none on the rural grounds and there is none yet in town. So we shall have a small bio-methanizer (4 m3) in town and a larger one (12 m3) on the bush site. Residents and visitors will contribute daily to the filling of the bio-digestors as well as cattle The gas will be used in the kitchens, thus preserving trees from being burnt. The effluents will be integrated into the compost trenches every now and then.There is a pilot project for bio-methane production in Burkina Faso ; masons and technicians are trained for building and maintaining them.

The training sessions for the general public will start before the buildings are completed. They will generate a first flux of revenue estimated to 6 000 euros in 2017, 12 000 in 2018 and 18 000 in 2019. The center will then become financially autonomous and provide employment for 5 persons.

2. EQUIPPING THE CEBNF (« centre d'éducation de base non formelle ») Vocational Centre for early school leavers or untutored youth :

Despite difficult relationship with the three succesive directors in 10 years( unclear money management and non use of some materials requested and provided by Pouam ) we get on well with the teachers who do their utmost to train a difficult population with very little equipment.We are about to bring in the next container :

– A proper welding machine for the metal construction teacher and class,discussions are on the way for a donation by a Wissembourg company

– 18 pedal sewing machines bought from Humanis Strasbourg and stored in Wissembourg– 12 electric sewing machines bought from Humanis Strasbourg and stored in Wissembourg– Spare parts for the sewing machines ( old models make reparations or maintenance difficult)

from Humanis too,

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we are still trying to find an old machine for for buttons and one for hem making. (3 if we can)

3. SENDING A NEW CONTAINER TO TITAO (our 3rd = +/ - 5000 euros)

If things go well the sewing machines, the welding machine, the 17 remaining microscope donated by Collège Otfried Science teachers, hand tools ( no electric supply) for DIY or gardening collected in North Alsace, cartons and cartons of books, given by dozens of sympathisers will be sent next spring (2017). Not to forget a colour photocopier offered by the Lutheran parish Saint John of Wissembourg, as well as a telephone-fax, the 12 computers collected for us by Humanis, games and toys for the kindergarten etc.The Wisembourg Hand Ball Club is planning a solidarity race to help us finance it.

4. FOLLOWING UP THE 29 SCHOOL GARDENS and our own

• The 8 newest gardens received their wheelbarrows, tools, mesh rolls, etc. in October and November 2013. An assessment 'tour' in March/April 2014 has provided informations on how it really worked. A report by « World partners » is very encouraging.

• 6 more schools, including the Sebba B school in Yagha 700 km away, integrated the projext in October 2014. They got their solar equipment with the help of Sol solidari, Barcelona.

• There are 4 parnership request from the Oudalan Province, Sahel region, the driest place in Burkina Faso.

We now have a list of more than sixty parents and teachers who request more training in composting, gardening, drying and preserving fruit and vegetables, growing medicinal plants,using a solar cooker, etc. Some training sessions will take place after the end of the rainy season and at the beginning of the dry cold season ...but it will also be harvest time for cereals so the calender will be tricky to set up.

The first 4 partner schools ( Hargo,Rimassa, Salla and Siguinonguin) are not supported any more by the project since June 2014,they are financially autonomous by then and are able to take part in training new partners ; this will enable us to accept the 4 next schools in the scheme unless we suddenly become rich , but let's keep realistic !

LOCAL PARTNERS :

« Pour un autre monde » has signed an agreement with the Burkinabè Ministry for Teritorial administration and the Ministry for Eonomics and Finance : we are allowed to work in primary and secondary schools, under the control of the provincial education authorities and are exempted from import taxes.

The successive DPENAs (Directeur Provincial de l'Education Nationale et de l'Alphabétisation) visited the CEPARTAS many times. They gave the NGO's president and the local coordinator appointments where the NGO's policies and activities were reviewed and encouraged.They presided the meetings with all the partner schools on their own office premises and facilitated the distribution of materials to the new partner schools in the North of the province. No doubt the next DPENA, M. Parzoum Ouedraogo will go along these lines.

The provincial directors for Environment and Agriculture are informed of our activities : Lieutenant Ouilly ( Environnment) is a regular jury member when we co-organize our 'Keep Titao Clean' yearly competition with the AJSDL ( Association de la jeunesse solidaire pour le développement du Loroum ), the agriculture technicians are visitors of our pedagogiacal garden and library.

A small local NGO AABC-Titao ( Association des Amis Burkinabè du Cepartas - Titao, Cepartas burkinabè friends) was created by school directors and people interestede . They had benefited from POUAM's help and wantd to take a more active part in the POUAM projects outside the adminstrative aspect in their schools. Thus they make local administrations and groups conscious of the issues at stake for a very low cost and high profit.

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The idea is to have the activities managed by AABC-Titao in the long term, once the projects have become financially viable without continuous help from Pouam's part.

HOW CAN YOU HELP US ?

We get our money from members' monthly or yearly contributions, from non-member donators. We sell traditional burkinabè handicraft, necklaces, bags, cloth,etc ; from time to time secondary schools in Alsace or Pfalz also contribute after conferences in classes on sustainable development , environment and climatic change made concrete...(It's part of the french curriculum). Secondary schools also provide some money, books or school equipment.Our yearly budget evolved from about 8000 euros in 2010 to 22 000 euros in 2013 but only 18 000 in 2016 .It does not allow for much more development in spite of local requests around Titao.

In 2013 the AMP (Agence des Micro-Projets, agency for micro-projects) endowed our « 8 more gardens in the Loroum province» project with 6000 euros, 3000 more will come at the end of the project in December 2016. A catalan NGO helped us with the 2014 and 2015 solar equipment of 10 schools.The UNCCD and UNO published an article on our activities in the book «  Living Land » edited for COP 21 in Paris. This comforted our bukinabè partners AABC-Titao and all the teachers, parents, pupils into going on with their efforts to improve their daily food and restore the red earth of Sahel, find resilient techniques to withstand and combat desertification.

To help us you can send money to our banks :

• in France : Crédit mutuel Enseignant ECKBOLSHEIMIBAN FR 76 1027 8019 0000 0105 4120 195

• In Burkina Faso : Caisse Populaire de Titao  IBAN BF 42 BF 02 3060 5600 610 4001 0430

The NGO is recognized of 'general utility' by the French Revenue Services and delivers an income tax receipt which gives a 66% rebate on the sum given under french rules.

Julien and Bruno plant a young moringa oleifera on our city grounds, October 2013 , on the right a promising « nere » ( parkia biglobosa)

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