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.

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.

The Burkinabe government strives to provide teachers wherever primary schools exist. In response to this incentive, villagers in the north of Burkina Faso have built over 300 primary schools out of mud and thatched roofs. Unfortunately, the government lacks resources to replace more than a few of these village schools with durable schools built with cement-block classrooms, metal roofs, doors, windows; latrines; deep bore wells, and pumps.

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.

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.