School Lunch Program

Primary school graduates of the Lambs for School project are able to extend their education by attending the Lycée Moderne de l’Amitié (LMA), a combined middle-secondary school near Ouahigouya. These girls walk, on average, six kilometers every day to attend class. From 2007-2012, FBF support provided noon-day meals for students who came from distant villages and stayed in Ouahigouya.

Classrooms for the Lycée Modern de l’Amitié in Yatenga

As girls began graduating in increasing numbers from village primary schools in the Yatenga Province, Association NEEED saw the need to build a middle school. It appealed and secured funding from foreign donors, including the Friends of Burkina Faso, to pay the construction costs for building classrooms for its middle school, called the Lycée Moderne de l’Amitié (LMA), located just outside of Ouahigouya. In 2005, LMA enrolled its first students, thanks to the support of donors in the U.S. and in Germany.

Lambs for Girls’ Education

FBF’s partnership with Association Nimbus, Enfance, Environnement, Education et Developpement (a non-profit non-governmental organization formed and run by Burkinabe) launched the Lambs for School Project in 2002 which is still ongoing. This program buys a lamb and school materials for a girl’s first year of school and requires her parents to 1) raise and sell the lamb at the end of the year to pay for their daughter’s school needs the following year and 2) use the proceeds from the sale of the lamb to purchase another lamb.

Post-secondary Scholarships

In 2010, FBF began supporting girls’ post-secondary scholarships. This on-going program helps finance training of young women either to become midwives, nurses, or primary-school teachers or enables them to pursue a university education. Selection criteria include potential for candidates to succeed in their studies and financial need. Preference is also given to girls from rural villages. In the past five years, FBF has supported 116 scholarships. Only one student has dropped out.

Que Serons-Nous Demain?

During the early 2000s, PCVs conducted leadership camps in communities throughout Burkina for teenage women who had successfully graduated from the 9th grade with their BEPC certificates. The primary purposes of the camps, under a program called Que Serons-Nous Demain?, were to broaden young women’s understanding of the life choices they face, build their self-esteem and self-confidence, and broaden their life and professional goals.