PROLOG helps school in Africa
Since 1992, a small group has been frequently travelling to Burkina Faso in West Africa and caring for small projects there. I went with them to Burkina Faso for the first time in 1994 and discovered my love for Sub-Saharan Africa.
I have worked at IH Berlin PROLOG since 2003 and PROLOG also helps us to support our efforts in Africa and makes accessible education possible for the children there. I personally believe that EDUCATION is one of the best chances these children have.
We have been looking after and supporting a small school in Burkina Faso (Oudalan province – Tin-Akoff village) since 1994. We pay for the school’s cook and take care of small issues and bring some joy to the children. This is all possible because we can also find people who help us help Africa.
On January 26, 2009, the preparation had finally been completed and our group of six climbed into the plane. Let it be known, we organise and fund our trips ourselves. Anybody who helps us can be sure that we deliver everything directly to the projects. In the late evening, we landed in the capital of Burkina Faso, Ouagadougou. We were greeted with intense heat, stench and hustle and bustle. Now through the airport control stations hoping that the car we ordered was there and would bring us to the hotel. Everything went as planned; at the Hotel OK INN we were warmly greeted and asked if we were happy to be in Africa again.
We talked with our drivers about the journey ahead. On the next day, a few more preparations – supplies and exchanging money (it is difficult to do this because there is not a lot of money in circulation, it took a half day to arrange everything) - and we’re off to the north to Tin-Akoff. Darkness descends quickly in Africa and then it is too risky to continue travelling. The first night in the wild – we all slept in tents – and that’s what we would do for the next weeks. Everything revolved around setting up and taking down the tents and moving on to the next location.
We were in luck, the streets had been resurfaced with real tar, which meant that we could move faster and we even made it to Dori. Afterward, we only had a gravel road, so it took us a full day to reach Tin-Akoff. Eventually we wanted to get to Gorom-Gorum to see the school, the Women’s Co-op for microcredit and the millet depot.
The continuing story and more info about the school in the next newsletter…
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Ilse has been working as an accountant for IH Berlin PROLOG since 2003. When she's not taking care of the funds at PROLOG, then she's getting her Afghan hounds ready for the next dog show.