South West Programme Unit
South West Region
Some of the classrooms in South West's girls centre
Population: 620,767 (2006)
Provinces: 4 (Bougouriba, Ioba, Noumbiel, Poni)
Sponsored children: Around 12,000
Plan Burkina Faso’s South West Programme Unit is located in Gaoua, about 400km from the capital Ouagadougou. With help from a new liaison office in the town of Diébougou, the Gaoua office oversees activities in 4 provinces. It has been developing and implementing programmes in the areas of education, child rights, health, HIV and AIDS, water and sanitation and more recently, emergency relief.
The South West is a hilly region with relatively good rainfall (about 1200mm) and good vegetation. Agriculture, cattle breeding, fishing, and hunting are the people’s main activities.
Programme highlights
In recent years, education has been Plan Burkina Faso’s main priority in the South West region. This year, 48% of its budget is being allocated to education for building and improving school infrastructure, strengthening the local administration in charge of education, building teachers’ capacities and granting scholarships to students.
Girls’ education project
Just as in other areas of Burkina Faso, girls in the South West Region are denied access to education due to gender inequality. To help, Plan Burkina Faso has worked with the community to build a girls' hostel, currently run by nuns from the ‘Congregation des Sœurs du Saint Esprit de Diébougou’.
Many families live in the surrounding rural areas and the hostel provides girls with a place to stay in Diébougou town, where the secondary schools are located.
Previously, girls were forced to abandon their studies after primary school or to raise money to rent an apartment in town by becoming maids or turning to prostitution, placing them at risk of HIV and teenage pregnancy.
The hostel gives these girls a place to stay, enabling them to carry on their education. They have a bed, food, lockers and study rooms.
Plan Burkina Faso will be building another girls’ hostel in the South West region in 2010. “This centre will enable young girls living in difficult situations to carry on with their studies in a learning-friendly environment,” said Plan’s South West PU Education Coordinator, Paul Ilboudo.
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