Post secondary Education for Girls in Burkina Faso

My name is Windpouire.  I received a scholarship from Global NEEED Burkina in 2010 for primary school teacher training.  Today, I am a happy wife, mother of four children and a primary school teacher in the village of Zorgho.

I want to thank most sincerely Global NEEED and its partners for you are the sun that shined in my life in a moment when the future seemed uncertain.  Thanks to the invaluable support that I received, I completed my training and joined the civil service as a teacher.

I have supported the primary school teacher training of my sister and my brother and they are both teachers in Dori.  Another sister and brother are students at the university.  Added to this is the joy I feel as I contribute to the family expenses.  I am, thanks to you, a responsible woman. (This is frequently the feedback we receive from past scholarship recipients: upon completing their training and obtaining employment, they honor their responsibility to support the education of other family members.  Thus, the scholarships you support for young village women provide the initial access to higher education in a family, after which the scholarship recipients are expected to share and pass on these benefits to others.  A wonderful multiplier effect.)

My wish is that Global NEEED partners, Burkina Faso Girls’ Education Fund and GlobalGiving, continue to support the education of young village women who, without your donations, could never obtain postsecondary training.

Warm greetings from Ouahigouya.  This is Fatimata.  I am 21 years old and in my first year of midwifery training, thanks to the scholarship I received from Global NEEED and its partners Burkina Faso Girls’ Education Fund and GlobalGiving. 

I come from a family of five children from the village of Bogoya, near Ouahigouya.  My older sister got pregnant in middle school and was forced to leave our family and go live with the father of her child as is the custom here.  As the second child in our family, and given the financial poverty of my family, I needed to do everything to succeed and to be able to take care of my parents.  I am extremely grateful that Global NEEED accepted to offer me a scholarship to study midwifery. 

At school, I work very hard all week and often on the weekends.  I have established for myself a rigorous program which I respect.  In class, I ask a lot of questions in order to best master my coursework. 

Midwifery training will enable me to provide quality prenatal care, deliveries and postpartum care as well as care for infants and to prevent complications at all of these stages.  I aspire to apply my training and competence to the service of humanity, to assist my country in improving the quality of health services to women and infants.  I will never forget as well my responsibility to my parents and younger brothers. 

My sincere thank you to the Burkina Faso Girls’ Education Fund and GlobalGiving for making my training possible.  I could not have done it without your support.

Links:

• http://www.bfgef.com