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Welcoming and supporting sick women and their children

  • 2022 Winner

Association for Development Aid in Burkina Faso, also known as Sainte-Véronique

Context

More than ten years ago, no facilities existed to accommodate mentally ill and homeless people in Ouagadougou and its surrounding areas. This population, facing great hardship, is largely made up of women who have lost their husbands and who struggle to care for themselves and their children due to their illness.

Based on these observations, the Burkina Faso Development Aid Association, also known as St. Veronica, built a center for people with mental illness in 2018, in close partnership with the ABASMEI association, founded by Sister Rosalie. To help these individuals, Sister Rosalie, who already ran a shelter for women accused of witchcraft, successfully mobilized a network of people and organizations in the region and around her association to support her project. Today, the project is supported by the village mayor, the center has been approved by the Ministry of Social Affairs, and donations from merchants in Ouagadougou and the surrounding area cover most of the center's daily needs.

However, although the original center provided shelter, food, and care for about ten people, it is now too small to meet the demand for accommodation and support. Furthermore, since the center's opening, the specific needs of women and their children have been observed. This has led to the decision to build an extension and additional support resources tailored to the specific needs of the women it serves.

  • In partnership with: Burkina Faso Association for the Reception and Care of Wandering and Isolated Mentally Ill People (ABASMEI)
Funder(s):
• La Guilde
• The Gratitude Foundation

Project objectives

  • To provide residents with a safe environment that meets their basic human needs (shelter, food, health).
  • To create living conditions conducive to the resocialization and subsequent family and professional reintegration of residents, particularly for women.
  • To enable the children of mothers accommodated in the center to grow up in decent living conditions, necessary for their intellectual and psychological development as well as their growth.
  • To provide mothers with the necessary support in motherhood and adult life by addressing the specific difficulties they face as women.

Activities

  • Construction of an additional accommodation building adjoining the existing center to house women exclusively
  • The range of training courses will be expanded to include both women and mothers. Training topics will focus on childcare and hygiene, women's health precautions and contraception, as well as the needs, risks, and care inherent in children's growth.

Direct beneficiaries

  • 40 adults with mental illness, who are homeless or isolated. The extension will only accommodate women, mothers, or elderly single women.

Through its Microprojects division, the NGO La Guilde, in partnership with the French Development Agency, supports the implementation of microprojects for sustainable development internationally.