Recently in Activities Category

Le vendredi 14 décembre 2012 a eu lieu l'ouverture officielle de la foire du livre au SIAO en présence du ministre de la culture BABA HAMA. Elle a été suivie par la coupure du ruban symbilique et la visite des stands par les officiels. Le ministre et son équipe guidés par le Directeur du livre ont visité le stand de FAVL et félicité l'initiative avant de continuer la visite des autres stands. Il faut reconnaitre que le stand a enregistré déjà beaucoup de visiteurs à savoir la directrice de la bibliothèque nationale de Cote-D'Ivoire qui aimerait bien avoir un entretien dans les jours à venir avec FAVL. Maitre Pacéré Titinga au passage a été invité à visiter le stand de FAVL.

Les livres du programme RWA sont appréciés par les visiteurs et la responsable  de la fondation Ki-Zerbo  aimerait que ces livres soinet dans les bibliothèques à Ouaga. Certains ajoutent que c'est bien les bibliothèques dans les villages mais les enfants de la ville aussi en ont besoin.

L'exposition a continué jusqu'à 18H avant de fermer ses portes. Elle reprendra ce jour 15 décembre à 9H. Nous avons invité des personnes à passer visiter notre stand comme FATOU KEITA,Ignace Hien et bien d'autres.

Dounko writes:

Le Directeur du programme RWA 2012 les étudiants et le coordonnateur Régional de FAVL ont assisté à un atelier d'exposition de photos organisé par les meilleurs photographes du Burkina Faso ce lundi 12 novembre 2012 à Goethe Institut de Ouagadougou.

Mr  Warren B. SARE président de cet atelier en collaboration avec Jens ULLRICH de Berlin ont pour objectifs de valoriser la photographie Burkinabé suivi d'un échange entre les photographes.

La participation de l'équipe RWA a eu un impact positif. De nouvelles idées sur la photographie en générale ont été acquises. Pour Dounko SANOU cette opportunité lui a permis d'acquérir des connaissances afin de faire la promotion de la lecture pour enfants à travers les images. Quant aux étudiants ils ont eu des connaissances et connu les meilleurs photographes du Burkina Faso.

Le Directeur du programme RWA David PACE, professeur de photographie à l'Université de SANTA CLARA aux USA de métier a salué cette initiative. Les images étant des justificatives des faits et réalités doivent avoir leurs places dans la société humaine.

Donkoui writes:

Le mercredi 31 octobre a eu lieu à la bibliothèque de POBE MENGAO la rencontre des bibliothécaires du Nord. Ils ont tous répondu présents à notre appel. Ce sont M. Konfé Hamidou de Pobé Mengao, Koundaba Alou de Béléhédé et Zebret Moumini de Bougounam. Cette rencontre a commencé à 7h45mn. Très motivés , ils ont échangé avec les responsables de FAVL (Koura Donkoui et Krystle Austin) venus de OUAGA autour des points suivants:
- le rôle d'un bibliothécaire;
- le traitement et l'acheminement des rapports mensuels;
- la gestion des comptes de la bibliothèque;
- les relations publiques;
- les questions diverses.

Les gérants ont suivi avec beaucoup d'attention la communication de l'équipe de FAVL de Ouaga avant de poser des questions sur la gestion des cahiers de comptes, le comité de gestion et l'entretien des livres. Les gérants déplorent le fait que les comités de gestion sont inactifs surtout à POBE et à BELEHEDE alors les gérants se sentent un peu abandonner. Mais cela ne les empeche pas de faire leur travail normalement. Nous avons suggéré de travailler avec leurs conseillers ou leurs mairies pour renouveller leurs comités de gestion dont les mandats sont expirés.

Suite à l'évaluation il est ressorti que ces bibliothèques présentent beaucoup d'aspects positifs dans la gestion. Il n'y a pas de livres en retard plus d'un mois dans ces bibliothèques; les pertes de livres varient entre zéro et un; enfin les gérants s'adonnent à des heures supplémentaires pour satisfaire leur communauté. Pour ce faire des encouragements leur ont été donnés par l'équipe et leur a invité de perséverer dans ces efforts.

A la fin de la rencontre, les trois bibliothécaires ont reçu chacun un lot des livres pour augmenter leurs fonds documentaires.

A acrostic poem about Emilie, who was a volunteer in Pobé for two years, that is prominently displayed behind the librarian's desk. You're not forgotten in your village, Emilie!

The new librarian from Ouargaye, Zombré Joanny, arrived from his two-week training in Dohoun with Alidou. During his training, Zombre learned about FAVL and the work we do in Burkina, the role of a librarian including the responsibilities and expectations of his job, how to organize a village library and keep account of the books that belong to the library, how to animate an activity for a group of students, how to record library statistics and accounts, among many other things. The training was both theoretical and practical. Alidou gave lectures and Joanny took copious notes (it's the practice of Burkinabè to write down EVERYTHING that a superior says, no matter how insignificant. One of the downsides of education based on rote memorization.). Alidou also had him tag along and watch the practice of all the things that he explained - how to fill out an accounts notebook, how to greet a visitor, and most importantly, how to run an activity for kids that is both interesting and educational. This is one of the strengths of FAVL as an organization, and is therefore a very important part of being a FAVL librarian. The last three days of the training were practical training just on that skill.

Now the librarian will return to Ouargaye, armed with all this new information, books to stock the library, subscription cards and signs to put by the road and outside the library to indicate its location. So looks like we're all set for the grand opening of the village library of Ouargaye. Ouargaye should have their library up and running by November 15th.

In other news: The RWA students and David Pace have safely arrived from village. Everyone is happy to have access to fans and cold Cokes, but really excited to be heading back to village in just a few days. They will take advantage of this trip to visit SIAO, the international arts and crafts exposition taking place here in Ouaga until next Sunday. Artists and craftsman have come from all over Africa - from as far away as Madagascar and South Africa to our neighbors of Mali, Niger and Côte d'Ivoire - to present and sell their work in Burkina. The festival takes place once every two years, and is definitely worth the trip.

Donkoui and I just got back from a visit the three northern libraries and to hold a training for the three librarians. We're definitely dustier and sweatier for the wear, but it was nice to get out of Ouaga (even briefly). Donkoui had only been to Pobé and I had only been to Bougounam, so it was a good experience for the both of us and helped us to understand the full FAVL picture better. Look forward to more about our visit and lots of pictures in the coming days!

Kate Parry writes:

Beyond Access is an initiative of the Gates Foundation, Irex, EIFL and others, which aims to put public and community libraries on the development agenda. Its first major activity was a conference that took place at the beginning of October in Washington DC, preceded by a camp for teams representing twenty libraries from all over the world, from Bhutan to Uzbekhistan.

Uganda was the only country to have two libraries represented, and FAVL's Kitengesa Community Library was one of them. Our team was comprised of Dan Ahimbisibwe, the Kitengesa librarian, Brenda Musasizi, the coordinator of UgCLA (Uganda Community Libraries Association), and Ssenteza Yusuf, our ally in local government (a professional civil servant who was stationed in Masaka for many years and was enormously helpful when we were buying the land for our new library building). The other library was the National Library of Uganda, with which UgCLA works closely, its Treasurer, Gertrude Kayaga Mulindwa, being the Director of the NLU.

For those of us who work with libraries, the camp was probably the most instructive part of the event. We had an opportunity to showcase our work in the form of a poster--Kitengesa produced two, actually, one focusing on our Library Scholarship scheme, the other on the work of our Women's Group--and were helped to draw up another as part of a competition for five awards of $10,000 each. The Kitengesa library did not win one, alas, but the National Library of Uganda did, for a project providing health information to young pregnant mothers. Other libraries produced other interesting proposals, for a tool lending library in Ethiopia, for instance, and for a project promoting indigenous languages in Brazil. Those didn't get awards either, but our partner group in Kenya, Maria's Libraries, did for a project involving reading with mothers and young children (similar in principle to what we're already doing at Kitengesa, actually, but with more use of technological gizmos). See the Beyond Access website for details. Apart from these activities, we also picked up some useful tips on approaching donors and identifying the outcomes and impacts of our projects. The conference on the third day was less informative for us, reasonably enough, since its main purpose was to inform donor organizations and other potential partners of the importance of what libraries like ours do. Best of all, this camp-plus-conference has resulted in what looks like becoming an ongoing network. I've been getting a flurry of emails from other library teams with questions and comments arising from the event. The main problem will be to keep up with them all.

On a more personal level, it was wonderful to have Dan, Brenda, and Ssenteza here in the US. Dan and Brenda came back to New York with me afterwards, and we had a terrific party for them on the Saturday. We also arranged some sightseeing for them, including visits to several libraries and to the United Nations, the members of whose 1% Cent for Development Fund have been among our greatest supporters. We're all tremendously grateful to Beyond Access and its sponsors for providing us with this opportunity.

We're making slow but steady progress with the Rotary Club to open our multimedia/publishing center in Houndé. We've been trying to get in contact with the treasurer to get through the last steps with no luck. Last night, Donkoui decided to bite the bullet and attend the weekly Tuesday night meeting of the Ouaga Rotary Club. He brought with him a sample copy of the book about his father, which is an example of the kind of work the center would be doing. They absolutely loved the book! Donkoui also told them a story from Michael about a former Santa Clara University Student who was in Australia doing research. She attended a Rotary Club meeting in Sydney, and when she was handed the agenda bulletin, she saw that the featured story was about the Ouaga Rotary and the work they're doing with FAVL! The Rotary members were really flattered to hear that they were being mentioned in faraway places like Australia!

We are now in contact with the right people and have the ball rolling once again to open our center! Yay!

Despite more and more frequent power, water and internet outages here in Ouaga, the team here in Burkina has been pretty busy and productive lately. Here's is some of the stuff we've been working on:

- Following up on the last stages Ouargaye library project. The librarian was chosen and is currently in Dohoun for a two week training with Alidou. After the training is over, Alidou will accompany the librarian back to Ouargaye to make sure he is comfortable in his new role. We've been making lists of the book donations that will be sent down there and printing "fiches de sorties" and "cartes d'abonnement" for the librarian's use. All that is left is to locally purchase the rest of the library's inventory.

- Outlining and writing the 2012 Annual Report that will be distributed to all partners and donors at the beginning of the new year.

- Revising PowerPoint presentations with current statistics, prices and photos and strategizing on where and to whom to give these presentations.

- Planning a trip to visit the northern libraries. We will conduct evaluations and have a meeting with the three librarians to reinforce their training in keeping account books, planning activities and sending monthly reports to Ouagadougou. I've never seen the libraries in Pobé and Béléhédé, so I'm pretty excited about this.

- Dounko accompanied the RWA study abroad students on an excursion to the economic capital of Burkina, Bobo-Dioulasso, and to the tourist sites in Banfora.

- Antoinette, our village in Houndé, planned some World Handwashing Day activities at a couple of the village libraries. Look for photos and a report soon!