At the end of each article we promise to update you on the progress of our activities, we want to respect the word given and we are really happy to be able to give good news. Today, in fact, we will talk about the project, presented a few months ago, of Realization of a kindergarten in the city of Garango in Burkina Faso: funded by the Italian Episcopal Conference (CEI), and started last February 1.

Burkina Faso is one of the poorest areas in the world and in particular the region in which Garango is located has many shortcomings, both from the point of view of health and education. We are talking about a territory where schools are often far away and difficult to reach, where traditional culture still plays a central role in family life and where families do not always want to send their children to school.

Pre-school education is almost completely non-existent: children between the ages of 3 and 5 have no facilities that guarantee adequate training and provide a springboard for their subsequent education.

Salute e Sviluppo wants to respond to this need by giving the possibility to about 100 children to live school, sociality and education. If this is the primary objective, the secondary objective is to succeed in changing the widespread mentality, especially among the older generations, still skeptical about the need to have their children studied. Thanks to an awareness programme, we aim to build a much more conscious and attentive community.

The project, as we anticipated, consists in the construction of the school that will host the children: three classrooms, a canteen and a rest room, in addition to the services and rooms of the administration. Subsequently, the school materials will be provided, the training of the operators who will take care of the children and the constitution of the three classes divided by age.

We should wait until February 2023 to see the project completed and the first classes can begin their journey, but already now the progress that has been made is remarkable: we can see from the photos how the structure of the school building was almost completely completed externally, the fence wall already finished and the other environments under construction.

The project is absolutely sustainable and aims to last a long time, remaining rooted in the territory, thanks to the involvement of all the local people: starting from the Camillian community on site, arriving at the operators and school staff, all made up of people belonging to the territory of the diocese of Tenkodogo.

We hope that by the end everything can proceed as planned and that next February the school will be operational and ready to welcome children from 3 to 5 years in the best way. We are proud of all these stones that, one on top of the other, are contributing to the construction of the place of the childhood of many Burkinabé children.