Recently in Activities Category

FAVL's October 21st fundraiser, featuring Ghanaian author Nii Ayikwei Parkes, was a
great success, bringing in $3,000 for FAVL.
 
The 65 guests spent the evening mingling with other FAVLers and dining on delicious African dishes including poulet yassa, riz sauce arachide, allocco, red red and more.
 
Parkes read from his novel Tail of the Blue Bird and answered questions from the audience. Parkes was touring the United States to promote his book and freely donated his time to FAVL once he heard about the organization's work. The money raised will be used to help support FAVL libraries in Ghana.

Thank you to all those that came out to support FAVL and a special thanks to Nii Ayikwei Parkes!

 

Over the last weekend, Monique (the new FAVL representative in Ouaga) and I traveled to the province of Tuy to visit the seven libraries around Houndé (Béréba, Dimikuy, Sara, Dohoun, Karaba and Boni). During our visit, we planned meetings with readers at some libraries and visits at others. Both being new to the FAVL team, it was a really informative experience for us. Here's a little blurb, complete with pictures and video, of our weekend in village.

Visit to Village Libraries in the Province of Tuy

On October 7^th, Monique and I packed our bags, said "see ya later" to Ouagadougou and journeyed to Tuy. Our first stop was Houndé, where we discussed with Donkoui our schedule for what was sure to be a busy weekend.

 

Afterwards, we traveled on to Béréba, where we met up with Dounko and spent the night.

 

Béréba

Since we were already in Béréba, we decided that the village library there was a good place to start.  The librarians had planned a meeting for us with readers from the village. The group was mostly composed of primary school children.

 

There was one adult reader who attended the meeting and was kind enough to talk to us about the importance of a village library.

Koumbia

In Koumbia, most of the readers were secondary school students. They emphasized the importance to their studies of the books available in the library. Many of them said they did not know how they would succeed in school if not for the library in Koumbia.

After exchanging with them, we had a brief lesson on how to treat a book so that they could last a long time. There was special emphasis on how to turn the pages of a book.

Dounko's demonstration of how to carefully turn the pages of a book

A secondary school student practices the new technique

Dimikuy

On Sunday morning, our first visit was to Salimata at the village library of Dimikuy. There, we found a group of primary school children. We took the opportunity to have Dounko animate Issaka est Malade and give an impromptu health lesson.

Sara and Karaba

The librarians in these two villages were very proud of their work. They both made mention of the need of certain books, as did the librarians in the other villages.

 

Dohoun

The parents of readers were very happy to meet with Dounko, Monique and myself. They exclaimed the importance of the library to their kids, especially those of whom had not finished school but were now able to provide their kids with the opportunity. They mentioned how they would like to create activities such as adult literacy classes and sessions to help advance their kids who are too young to attend school.

We took the opportunity to introduce the newest round of RWA books, which are very popular with FAVL readers, to library patrons. They were "oohed" and "aahed" over by all.

Boni

When we arrived in Boni on Monday morning, the mayor (on the left in the photo below) happened to be paying a visit to the library as well. He took a tour of the library with us and rejoiced in the advantages of the library to the community. He said he was ready to engage the mayor's office in the financial management of the library.

All in all, it was a very successful and informative visit, and we hope to return again soon.

I just created my first Windows Movie Maker video and finally figured out how to post it on YouTube! This video includes a lot of footage from Dounko from the very last reading camp of the 2011 season in Béléhédé. A big thanks to everyone who made the camps a success, and here's even better and improved camps in 2012!

We just ended a great run of summer reading camps here in Burkina! The last camp finished last week in Béléhédé. There are a lot of things that helped us realize such successful camps - we were able to hold camps in all of our libraries here in Burkina (and for the first time at several), we were able to provide the kids with lunches everyday and t-shirts to keep, we were able to give each library a couple of copies of the HIV/AIDS and maternal health books that we got through a grant, and we were able to have PCVs help facilitate many of the camps. Thanks to all the people who contibuted time, donations, ideas and support to FAVL so that we could have these reading camps. Here's to an even more successful camp season in 2012!

For your enjoyment, some pictures of the reading camp in Béléhédé. (Photos courtesy of Dounko.)

 

Lucas, the Regional Coordinator in Ghana, came to visit the Ouaga office and pick up the book donation that we received from Regina a few weeks ago. He brought with him some pictures from the reading camps at the three libraries in Ghana. For your enjoyment:

Around this time last year, my fellow PCV, Sabrina, and myself were looking for materials in bookstores in Ouaga for the girls' clubs in our respective villages. We browsed and eventually bought a couple of things, but we were discouraged (1) by how expensive books were for the average PCV who wanted to teach their kids a thing or two about good health practices and (2) by how out-of-reach the reading materials were for the average Burkinabè village child. The images and stories were not relevant to their lives and the language level was such that we figured we would probably end up having to teach French lessons instead of health lessons (and try explaining the literary French tense to a kid who can't conjugate most verbs correctly in the present!). So we did what PCVs do best when we find our resources inadequate - we decided to create our own! And there, in the DIACFA parking lot, was born the idea of a series of children's health books in very, very simple French with drawings and stories the kids would not only learn from, but relate to as well. The kids would be named Awa and Hamidou; they would eat tô for dinner; they would take their afternoon rest on mats outside. Our idea was that PCVs could have these books available to them through the PCBF website, be able to print them off at no cost, take them back to village for girls' clubs, demonstrations, health lessons, etc. to more easily teach their kids about how to better take care of their health.

 

And I'm proud to say that after much procrastination and anticipation, the first of book in the series is ready for distribution! It's the story of Issaka, a baby who is sick with diarrhea, and how a family friend, Aminata, teaches his mother, Awa, how to better care for him (see the cover page below). As a FAVL volunteer, I thought this would be a great material to have available at our libraries, and luckily, Michael agreed. So we're going to print some copies and send them to the librarians, who can use them in animations. I'm also working on translating them into English so we can send some copies to the Ghana libraries.

 

Coming soon: the second in the series, a tale that recounts the importance of washing one's hands (which will be great for Global Hand Washing Day on October 15^th)!

After a successful three day run, Peace Corps Burkina's 50^th Anniversary Fair is over! The festivities were kicked off by a giant rain storm that knocked over all of the tents and almost delayed the opening of the Fair to the public. Fortunately, we are in Burkina, where rain is a sign of good luck, and it really was! It was amazing to see the interest in FAVL by PCVs, Burkinabè and ex-pats alike. Everyone was really excited to see books in Jula with local photographs. We were selling Kathy Knowles color books and a few others in French and Jula. We sold quite a few during the course of the Fair. FAVL was also invited to give a presentation in the pavilion during the Education block. Monique and I talked for a half an hour about FAVL and what we do, and several people came to our booth afterwards for more information.

The FAVL stand also hosted a few special visitors. The first distinguished guests were Moringa Man and Woman (Peace Corps really encourages people to plant Moringa trees because its leaves are so nourishing and their powder can be added to just about any food to enhance its nutritional benefits) who roamed through the Fair extolling the advantages of moringa. On the last day, Chantal Compaoré, the First Lady of Burkina, made a special visit to see all of the volunteer stands and to preside over the closing ceremony. Shannon Meehan, the director of Peace Corps Burkina and a good friend of FAVL, made a point to call attention to our booth. Monique and I presented her with four Kathy Knowles books in Jula.

All in all, the Fair was an extremely successful event in both garnering interest for the organization and raising some money for FAVL.

Moringa Man and Woman take a short                                                      PCBF Director Shannon explains FAVL  

   reading break at the FAVL stand                                                                 to First Lady Chantal Compaoré

                                                  Monique and I at the FAVL stand