- Several new books are available on fastpencil FAVL website. Thanks to Elisee for doing the "montage". One is an alphabet book by a Peace Corps volunteer in Senegal. One is the Moringa book by Alison Wallace.
- Burkina Faso summer reading camps are in full swing. There have been some excellent recent blog posts by the Ouagadougou team. FAVL received $400 in local funding to support the camps, in addition to significant funding from International School of Ouagadougou and U.S. Embassy in Burkina Faso. And, as you know, Lisle Inc.
- Thanks to grant from Chen Yet-Sen Foundation, Lucas Amikiya in Sumbrungu traveled to Accra and purchased a substantial number of children's books for the three libraries. The grant will also permit purchase of new children;s tables and chairs, and mats.
- The three Ghana librarians have started running after-school reading programs with the new books, where they have groups of children all reading the same book. A promising new program.
- The Ouagadougou team has been trying hard to establish contacts with gold mining companies in Burkina, as potential local donors.
- The Burkina team has been continuing efforts to transfer more responsibiliity to local mayors. The latest word is that two mayors are now ready to sign MOUs with FAVL. Once some of them commit, we expect the others to follow rapidly. This is important because as you recall Burkina Faso only decentralized in 2005, and local mayors (all of them are the very first elected mayors and are up for reelection in Dec 2012) have limited experience and limited budgets. So this is a big step.
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