Provide reading opportunities to schoolchildren

FAVL is grateful to our generous GlobalGiving donors who have contributed $1,158 to this project as of October 12, 2015.  We can actually start the project as soon as we meet our interim funding goal of $2500. Why this amount? A new motorcycle (a sturdy but reasonably priced Kaiser brand) costs about $1100 (600,000 FCFA), and in order to transport books, we must also purchase a rear-mounted cart to safely hold and transport the collection. FAVL luckily has a "seed" stock of books, used in our Youth in Tuy Reads project, to serve as our itinerant book collection.  (Please see earlier project reports for more information.)  

A FAVL volunteer generously spent this past July in the town of Houndé, Burkina Faso. One of her assignments was to explore whether there was a lower cost alternative to a new Kaiser motorcycle, but she determined our original choice of motorbike is still the most cost effective.  While it is easy to suggest a far cheaper alternative -- i.e., that the librarian ride a bicycle outfitted with a book cart -- please remember that Burkina is very hot, even in the "cool" winter months.  A librarian cannot ride a bicycle pulling 45 kilos (100 lbs) of books on a dirt, deeply potholed track for a minimum of 20 km, no matter how dedicated he or she is to promoting reading.

Meanwhile, other projects continue to keep FAVL-Burkina Faso very busy. We are currently working hard to establish 20 community libraries in northern Burkina Faso with a grant from Catholic Relief Services.  The CRS libraries will begin to open in the next two months, as will a new library in Sebba village, Burkina Faso.  Our Rotary International-funded multimedia center in Houndé continues to foster local author talent and print locally produced books.  

We thank you for your support of our project to provide access to reading materials in the most remote Burkina villages.  We appreciate your patience as we raise the funds needed to make the project a success.

Links:

• FAVL blog