Ni zabre!
This week the volunteers had the opportunity to support HSB with the
monitoring and evaluation of the organisation’s micro-credit scheme.
With support from UK school Frederick Gough, who visited Burkina in February,
HSB’s micro-credit scheme was launched in March 2014 and has so far provided small
loans to eleven mothers who bring their children to Espace Bambino. The loans
have supported the women in developing income-generating activities and is led by
Drop-In Centre manager, Nathalie Ilboudo, who verifies how the money is spent and
evaluates the impact that the loans are making on the lives of each family involved.
Razak, Tankoano, Blake, Nathalie, and Razak's mum, Aisetta
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Our first visit was to the home of Pascaline, mum to Paulin, who used savings
to purchase a weaving machine before applying to HSB’s micro-credit scheme in
order to buy her first lot of cotton. She is now producing fabric from her
courtyard by buying the cotton from the local market, dying it, and weaving it
together to create fabrics of different colours, patterns and thicknesses. Eight
year old Paulin was excited to show us his school books which show that he is consistently
top of his class (of ninety eight students!)
HSB, Paulin, and family
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It was thanks to Pascaline that Farida’s mum, Rihanata, found out about the scheme.
Rihanata ran a small food stall before joining up to the scheme, but the money she borrowed has
enabled her to diversify her product range and thus offer more to her customers
– she is now ordering stock from as far afield as Bobo-Dioulasso. She now sells
coal, péssa (a starchy food), bassi (a bit like couscous), yam, peanut
oil, koura-koura (peanut donuts) and
sugared peanuts. She showed the HSB team how she makes peanut oil by grinding
the nuts into a paste in a physically demanding process. Farida’s mum faced unfortunate
circumstances two months ago when a fire wiped out her stock. Despite having to
set up her stall from scratch, Farida’s mum did not dwell on this setback and,
in testament to her fortitude, has now got her business back up and running.
Rahim's mum, Marietta, with little sister Rachida, and brother Razak
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On Friday we made our second round of visits to the mums of Rahim, Oumar
and Razak. All three have seen an increase in income as a result of the scheme,
but the team were concerned to hear how Marietta has faced discrimination in
the community because she has a disabled child. We spoke about strategies that
Marietta can use in order to bring in customers and crucially, as Nathalie
re-iterated, raise awareness about disability at the same time.
The visits were a reflective experience for all the volunteers, the
sheer distance we covered by 4x4 prompting us to think about the difficult
journey the mothers make by bike to bring their children to Espace Bambino each
week, and the value that the centre provides.
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