Plan Burkina Faso: what we do

Plan’s work in Burkina Faso covers 4 core areas, all of which are rooted in the rights of the child:

• good quality education
• maternal and child health care
• safe drinking water and sanitation
• protecting children against the effects of HIV.

This priority programme aims to improve access to quality formal and non-formal education. A great number of children have been enrolled in schools thanks to an increase in school infrastructure building projects, repairs, furnishings and supplies by Plan.
We also support the capacity building of community and institutional structures in charge of education.

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Right to health: what you need to know

Children who access their rights have the best start to life. But what are child rights, and why is health one of them? Here's what you need to know about every child’s right to health, no matter where in the world they are. 

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A community free of child marriage, thanks to child sponsorship

Child sponsorship is an incredible way to support children around the world. It’s a unique and personal way to connect with a child in the developing world and make a lasting difference in their life. Child sponsorship is also a great opportunity to support projects that help an entire community. Yes! You heard us right -- your donation can help that many people.

Because of child sponsorship, Plan staff can operate effective programming that supports entire communities by providing essentials like health, education, water and sanitation, and livelihoods.

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“There should be no mystery about how our children are learning” - Julia Gillard

A teacher sits with a student as she’s reading a new book. The child is learning new words, and stringing sentences together. In another classroom, students are repeating their times tables and getting their heads around maths puzzles. In schools around the world, children’s minds are developing and teachers are guiding their path. But there is still work to be done in ensuring all children have access to quality education.

In her article for Guardian Australia former Prime Minister Julia Gillard explores the fact there are enormous gaps in our understanding of how well children are learning around the world. “There should be no mystery about how our children are learning,” she writes. The importance of testing shouldn't be underestimated when it comes to providing all children quality education.
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Plan International's Big Blue Bags Deliver Hope to Children Affected by Haiyan

“Angel is a special girl,” says her carer Corazon Barrel, as she waits to collect the small girl in a pretty pale blue dress from the Plan-supported daycare session in Guiuan, Eastern Samar.

Today’s session is taking place in a tiny concrete room. Typhoon Haiyan, the largest storm ever to make landfall, destroyed the adjacent daycare center that sits on the coastline. With windows blown out by the sheer force of the storm, the center is filled with debris. All learning materials were destroyed as well.

In the corner of the concrete room sits one of Plan’s “Big Blue Bags,” filled with toys made from indigenous and recycled materials. The resources were made by the teacher, who attended a Plan workshop on indigenous toy-making just last year. Thanks to these toys and learning materials, the sessions are helping to restore a sense of normalcy for children like Angel.

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Education Helps Women and Children Recognize Their Value

According to Egyptian Law, a child must be at least 16 years old to obtain employment. However, 46 percent of the 1.96 million working children in Egypt are between the ages of 15 and 17. In Egypt, children as young as 5 are employed as child workers, making them extremely vulnerable to exploitation, maltreatment, and the deprivation of their rights.

Nadia, 13, is from the slum community Khairallah in the south of Cairo. She is one of the 17 percent of working children who work for more than 12 hours a day without receiving a break. With her simple but emotional words, she recalls those days.

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Poverty Can Steal a Child's Dream

Rania had always dreamed of becoming an engineer and she studied hard to make her dreams come true.

However, when Rania’s father suffered a stroke, his condition limited the number of hours that he could work. As a result, the family’s income decreased, priorities shifted, and educating the children was no longer of importance.

“This made it hard for me at school. Every time I was asked to buy certain number of textbooks, my father could only afford to buy half the number required. I faced many embarrassing situations at school, especially when the headmaster came to the class and called my name. He strongly rebuked me for not paying the school fees by the due date, asking me not to come to school till they were paid,” Rania said.

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The heavy toll of early motherhood

Rani was married at age 11 - her ID card was doctored to say she was 18. She and her husband started trying for a baby but it took seven years for her to fall pregnant. She suffered complications during labour and needed several blood transfusions. Four months later, she has still not fully recovered.

“I felt very stressed. I have been trying for a baby for seven years. So this time when I was expecting, I felt worried for the baby. I had so many expectations to meet but I am only 18,” says Rani.

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Case study: 13 and bride

Meet Mariama, 13, who has just discovered she is about to join the 40% of girls in Niger who marry before they are 15.

Early marriage can be catastrophic for girls. Many are pulled out of education and pregnancy can cause serious long-term problems - such as fistula, which leaves girls incontinent and in constant pain.

Plan is working with girls, their parents and communities to educate them about the consequences of child marriage, particularly the dangers to a girl's health if she gives birth before her body is ready.

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Case study: Making motherhood safer in Malawi

”Today I have a baby,” says 24-year-old Stella, proudly. It’s happy news, but Stella has suffered many losses on her journey to motherhood.

Stella has given birth to 4 babies but, tragically, 3 were stillborn. During her fourth pregnancy she was supported by Plan’s safe motherhood volunteers. She gave birth at the Plan-supported Chitedze Health Centre, which serves the communities of Kango and Sankhani in central Malawi.

It was the first time she had used the health centre. In the past, Stella had relied on the traditional birth attendants, who are still favoured by many people in rural Malawi, despite the fact that they often lack skills and knowledge of modern medicine.

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Case study: Saving babies' lives

See how Plan is helping to cut death rates for newborn babies by 50% in some districts of Nepal.

Two thirds of deaths of Nepalese children aged under 5 are during the newborn period. In 2001, Plan started setting up pregnant women's groups to help women prepare for a safe birth and to care for their babies. Today there are more than 500 groups across the country producing dramatic results.

One 17-year-old group member said: "I've learned lots of things from these meetings, like I should take iron tablets, I must have warm and soft clothes ready for the baby, and when it's born to hold it close to me and to keep it warm. I wouldn't know anything if it wasn't for the Pregnant Women's Group."

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It’s Tough Without Any Friends

I argued with my mother again today. We haven’t been able to see eye-to-eye recently. She is cross, perhaps understandably so. She is desperately trying to convince me or even to force me to go back to school. I haven’t been attending school recently. I left school fuming 10 days ago and I haven’t been back since. She is trying to play down the episode which made me leave school nearly two weeks ago. That Monday, I was not allowed to enter the school yard and to attend school because I was not wearing the school uniform. The school uniform is compulsory here. In Kidal, I would never have been excluded from school because of a uniform issue–we were a wealthy family. My parents had good jobs. They had the means to support us. Here however, it is a struggle. It is a constant struggle for everything.


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Child-friendly spaces: Helping children through emergencies

Take a tour of a Plan child-friendly space in Niger and see the support it is providing to children who have been forced to flee fighting in neighbouring Mali.

Plan installs child-friendly spaces after a disaster or crisis to give affected children a place to play, be safe, have a nutritious meal and receive emotional support to help them cope and recover.

This child-friendly space in one Niger refugee camp alone has already benefited hundreds of children.

Case study: Education lift for child street workers

Children from migrant indigenous families in Quito, Ecuador, who would normally spend their days working on the streets, are now receiving an education thanks to Plan.

Thousands of indigenous families migrate to the city each year but when they arrive they often experience discrimination against their language and culture - limiting their access to jobs and education. Many of them are forced to become street vendors, including 2,200 children.

Watch the video to see how the Plan-supported Inter-Cultural Bi-Lingual Emperimental Centre is helping children whose families work in San Roque Market. Many of them would probably never have the chance to attend a regular school.

When should a child be considered adult?

Why not ask a child?

Children across Vietnam have been given the chance to voice their opinions on when a young person should be officially refered to as an adult.

After campaigning via Vietnam’s Children’s Helpline and the internet, Plan Vietnam carried out child polling in 40 schools in 10 provinces during the months of August and September. This poll allowed them to collect data from an estimated 20,000 children.

In Vietnam, there is confusion in regards to the age at when a young person is is considered an adult. Working age, the age of consent, and marriageable age all differ and even within those examples, there is conflicting legislation that continues to complicate this issue.

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A school for Tanseiga

If sending your children to school meant a five-mile walk on an unsafe road twice a day, what would you do?

Until last year, this was the dilemma facing parents in Tanseiga, a village in central Burkina Faso. Sending children to school involved a five mile walk on a long and sometimes dangerous road. While parents were aware of the value of educating their children, this was not a choice that many parents were prepared to make. As a result, only 7 percent or 35 out of the 500 children in the village went to school. 

Frustrated by the barriers they faced in getting their children to school, parents in Tanseiga approached Plan to find a solution. Plan worked with parents, children, and the local education authority to plan the construction of a new school in the village.

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A kid's perspective: Why a quality education matters

Every child has a dream growing up – to be a doctor, a scientist, an artist or a sports star. When you're a kid, possibilities are endless and the world is your oyster, but this isn't the case for children living in the developing world.

Here at Plan, we help children around the world realize their full potential by promoting quality educationand child participation.

Millions of children are missing from school, including 75 million girls. A lack of quality education is keeping these children from escaping the cycle of poverty and improving their own lives.

To get to the heart of the matter, we asked our kid experts to tell us why education matters.

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Lack of birth registrations keep children out of school

Sania, 7, is a very shy girl who lives in the slums of Islamabad in Pakistan. She loves books and learning and was keen to go to school after graduating from a preschool supported by Plan’s early childhood care and development (ECCD) initiative.

As her former caregiver Rehana observed, “She loves studying and questioning. She is now 7 years old and it is time for her to go to primary school.”

But Sania faced a challenge, bigger even than overcoming the initial resistance of her father, who had thought education was wasted on a girl: Sania had no birth certificate. Without one, it’s difficult to enroll in any primary school.

In some districts of Pakistan, fewer than 1 in 10 births are registered – and it’s especially tough for girls. In Kyber Pakhtunkhwa province, for example, from January 2005 to February 2008, 5.7% of boys had their births registered compared to just 3.6% of girls. With statistics appearing to show fewer girls than actually exist, funding for girls’ education has been seriously shortchanged.

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Plan responds to cholera outbreak in Sierra Leone

Plan is stepping up its humanitarian response in Sierra Leone, due to a rapid increase of cholera cases in recent weeks. While the cholera outbreak in Sierra Leone began in January, in recent weeks it has intensified.

3,375 children across the country have contracted the illness to date and at least 216 people have died. President Ernest Bai Koroma has declared a national emergency.

"We are working to reduce the impact of this devastating outbreak on children and their communities. Currently we are concentrating on promoting crucial hygiene messages in schools, improving sanitation, and making sure people have access to safe water." says Plan's Disaster Advisor, Edward Sesay.

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Fødselsattest til 40 mio. børn

Siden 2005 har Plan bidraget til, at 40 millioner børn og voksne i 32 lande er blevet registreret gennem vores kampagne Count Every Child.
 
Med Plans hjælp er fødselsregistrering for alle børn nu også nået til tops på FN's dagsorden. For første gang i historien har FN vedtaget en resolution, som netop sætter fokus på fødselsregistrering og juridisk identitet.
 
Til udarbejdelsen af den nye resolution har Plan bidraget med faglig ekspertise og input for at sikre, at der kommer handling bag ordene: Alle lande skal registrere deres borgere.
 
Hvis man ikke er registreret i det offentlige system, kan man nægtes adgang til uddannelse, sundhedsbehandling, beskæftigelse og statsborgerskab. Samtidig er der større risiko for at blive udsat for menneskehandel, tvangsægteskab, misbrug og udnyttelse.
 
Hvert år kommer omkring 51 millioner børn til verden uden at blive registreret.