Guékédou prefecture

Area : 4,400 sq. km
Population : 227,279
Communes : 1
Sponsored children: Around 8,400

Guékédou  prefecture is situated in the forest region of Guinea. Most of the population are Kissi, one of Guinea’s ethnic minorities.

The sub-equatorial climate means that Guékédou receives heavy rainfall for 8 to 9 months of the year. Almost 80 % of the population lives mainly off of agriculture, growing cereals, such as rice and maize, and perennial crops such as coffee and kola nuts.

Plan Guinea has been working with the children, their families, and their communities in the area since 1989 to promote their rights and make sure they receive the best possible care. All of our projects are carried out in partnership with the communities and technical support of the local government services.

Programme highlights

Children’s health and survival

In Guékédou, Plan Guinea works to build the capacity of health centres by training staff and providing equipment and medicine. The number of patients that can be treated has also increased by building and equipping new health units.

To help educate communities on health issues, Plan Guinea carries out awareness raising campaigns on HIV and AIDS, how to prevent diseases such as malaria and cholera, safe child birth practice, and reproductive sexual health.

We also work with Guékédou’s health department to help supervise community health agents.

Early childhood development

In partnership with Guékédou’s pre-school service and local non-governmental organisations working in education, Plan Guinea is helping to train monitors to improve the quality of supervision in pre-schools.

So far, 560 monitors have received training in positive teaching methods.

Quality basic education

Plan Guinea is improving primary and secondary education by training teachers, helping build and equip new classrooms, as well as installing safe drinking water fountains and latrines at schools.

We also provide textbooks and supervise teachers, and work to help improve entry exam results for secondary schools.

Awareness-raising campaigns are run on the importance of education and staying in school. Plan Guinea also supports a boarding school for 64 girls with plans to expand the project to another 10 communities next year.

We also work to increase parents’ and children’s participation in the development and management of schools by training parent associations and setting up children’s governments.

Children’s protection and participation

Plan Guinea is encouraging children to actively promote their health and that of their friends, family and communities through school, health centres, youth clubs, churches and other groups.

Working with our partner organisations, we recruit supervisors to train teachers and set up health committees to spread the message to communities.

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