PHASE 3 - Burkina Faso

Children's Rights

The Association pour la fraternité multicolore in Burkina Faso organized a project aiming at developing income generating activities through artistic and handcraft creation. 48 students (27 female, 21 male), orphans or persons in need, learnt to create objects that they could sell on local markets, in order to be able to attend courses. A medical visit was also organized, during which the teenagers received information on prevention of HIV/AIDS and STDs.

The Groupe de recherche-action pour un développement endogène de la femme rurale au Burkina Faso (GRADE) organized in October 2002 a three-day workshop on the rights of the child, directed to twenty teachers and twenty NGOs’ representatives coming from different regions of the country. Issues such as working children, particularly vulnerable children, international protection of children’s rights, trafficking in children, female genital mutilation, children and HIV/AIDS were addressed; information materials were distributed. The teachers and the trainers engaged themselves to conduct information sessions on the rights of the child in schools and in communities.

Coalition au Burkina Faso pour les droits de l’enfant (COBUFADE) conducted a sensitization project targeting 50 teachers and approximately 800 school children. COBUFADE compiled all promotional tools and materials on the rights of the child available in the country; the compilation has been widely distributed among teaching actors. It also set up a documentation centre on human rights in their headquarters in Ouagadougou. An itinerating reading bus has also been organized, that goes from one village to another, and provides lectures on human rights and children’s rights issues.