Story
I am departuring on the 06 / 01 / 2014
Coming back on the 28 / 03 / 2014
I have pre-departure training on the 3rd - 4th December 2013
50% Fundraising deadline: 25th October
I will be travelling to Burkina Faso, Africa for just under 3 months to take part in community bottom up grassroots development projects on gender/sexuality and disability issues. Your donations, big or tiny, will be hugely and equally appreciated! Your investment in this project will be put to good use in helping others!! :) International Service selected Burkina Faso as my destination because of my deep interest and study surrounding these issues. After living in a french country for 10 years, my french language skills will be really useful in Burkina Faso as well. Although I haven't been assigned a project as yet (they assign you one close to departure) I may be partaking in activities such as sex education teaching as well and other volunteering activities aimed at tackling gender and disability discrimination.Time to put what I've learnt about social problems and development at university - promoting equality - into practice and put myself to some good use! Thank you so much for helping me.
Here is an academic article discussing the Gender Issues in Burkina Faso. Please have a read to have a better idea of why it is important to spread information on such issues to stimulate intereste and social change.
The Quest for Gender Equality in Burkina Faso
http://www.catunescomujer.org/globalnetwork/docs/Gender_equality_in_Burkina-Faso.pdf
From the article:
Only 8.1 % percent of women ages 15 and above in Burkina Faso were literate in 2005, compared to 18.5% of men. A key explanatory factor for the even lower literacy rate among adult women is that women’s heavy workloads limit their time to access education. However since the 1970s, technologies have been introduced to help free up women’s time. The government today has also acted to prioritize the introduction of workload-lightening technologies for women, and increase the literacy rate of its female citizens through dedicated programmes. The government is now spending 22 % of its revenues on education, more than the all-Africa average. Thus a question that emerges is why gender inequalities remain in
Activities over the past three decades have yielded strong positive results in terms of narrowing Burkina’s ‘gender gap’ in primary school enrollments and completion of the primary cycle of schooling, and in increasing women’s economic autonomy and voice in the villages and beyond. The continued priority and investment in lessening women’s workloads and promoting female education of Burkina’s Government and citizens as well as their development partners are cause for optimism. As a Burkina proverb states, “Two hands scoop up more flour.”"