Rehabilitate Bereba Library to honor David Pace

The FAVL-supported libraries in Burkina Faso have had several tough years. A civil war, which started in 2016, has grown rapidly, and has pitted various Islamist-oriented groups (whose first actions are to close schools and insist that schooling be in Arabic, a language that few people in the country speak) against the Burkinabè military (which overthrew the democratic government in January 2022, suspended local government, and then perpetrated another coup within military ranks late-September of this year). The upshot of the conflict is that 12 libraries have been closed.  The FAVL representative in Burkina Faso, Sanou Dounko, continues to visit libraries that remain open, in secure areas. The office pivoted to a major initiative, the production of 10,000 copies of 50 illustrated books written and illustrated by residents of the town of Houndé. The books have been distributed to libraries that are open. This coming year our goal is to produce and distribute 50,000 copies. We are also exploring how we can expand the variety of books produced. We’d love to have a young adult science fiction series for readers in Burkina Faso.

In November the mayor's office, police station, and cell-phone tower were attacked and destroyed in Bereba. All schools and administrative services in the area have closed. Consequently we have been unable to move forward on the project. We look forward to peace returning to the country, hopefully in 2023.

Dear donor,

We would like to make progress in rehabilitating the library in Bereba, but unfortunately the security situation in Burkina Faso continues to deteriorate. Over the past year the community of Bereba has been attacked twice (armed gunmen attacking the police and forestry post). Other villages in the area have also been attacked. The gendarmerie of the main town of the province, Houndé, was attacked. This high insecurity makes it hard for FAVL and partner personnel to carry out activities. Moreover, the military government, which took power in a coup d'état in January 2022, suspended local civilian leadership, replacing it with military appointed local leadership. These leaders have little legitimacy and authority, and are unable to act as good partners. So progress has slowed. We continue to regularly reach out to local partners, both informally and in government, to try to assess when we might be able to make more progress.

In the meantime, FAVL continues to support the library in Bereba (and neighboring Dimikuy) by supporting the librarians and ensuring the libraries are open part of the week for readers. We have focused also in Burkina Faso on our project to print 10,000 copies of 50 titles in our "local authors" series. These are short illustrated books for young readers, photocopied. We anticipate finishing these in September, and distributing 250 copies to each of the libraries in Bereba and Dimikuy, as well as to other libraries in Tuy province.

Links:

• FAVL website