In the Centre-Nord Region of Burkina Faso, extreme poverty and malnutrition have been compounded by serious threats of conflict and terrorism. The Victory Against Malnutrition Plus (ViMPlus) Activity aims to support households in this region to achieve better nutrition and food security. The seven-year activity is funded by USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance and implemented by ACDI/VOCA, in partnership with Save the Children, Tufts University, and proven local partners.
Here’s what our staff and participants accomplished in 2022:
January: Media campaigns
We teamed up with Farm Radio International to develop themes for a media campaign to air on local radio networks and train local participants. Workshop participants brainstormed topics for future broadcasts and discussed ideas that were later used to develop scripts.
February: Husband Schools
Participants took part in supervisor trainings for Husband Schools, or Écoles des Maris (EDM) in Pissila, Tougouri, and Yalgo. EDM is a network of married men who are trained to become leaders in their communities and promote reproductive health, positive behavioral change, and dialogue about family decision making. In these trainings, they learned to lead discussions and train other EDM participants.
March: Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene
In Wapassi, community members made additional upgrades to boreholes (pictured left), including waiting benches (pictured right) and tippy taps used for hand washing. These improvements will help promote good hygiene behavior.
April: Mother Leaders
Mother Leaders play an important role in the community of Bakienga. They are trained to teach other mothers how to provide and seek care for their newborns. Together with the ViMPlus Activity’s Health, Nutrition, WASH, Youth promoters and the community health center of Taparko, they organized a community meal. The menu of the day was naglafando, which consists of leafy green vegetables, millet flour, roasted and crushed peanuts, and oil.
May: Village Development Council trainings
Village Development Councils took part in training covering administrative, financial, and asset management skills. They learned about roles and responsibilities, activity monitoring and evaluation, and accountability and transparency. As a result, several villages in Pissila organized accountability days, often held in the presence of the traditional chief.
June: Disaster risk and prevention
The Community Early Warning Structures in 55 villages received kits of materials from local implementing partners. They also received rain gauges, which allow villages to track the volume and frequency of rainfall to take better informed disaster prevention and reduction measures. On the left, the president of AZND receives a kit in Rollo. On the right, the governance and gender supervisor of ADSN receives a kit in Namissiguima.
July: Livestock trade fair
A trade fair organized by the Nebnooma Provincial Union of Small Ruminants took place in Sanmatenga. Participating livestock cooperatives exhibited 600 small ruminants and 2,000 poultry for sale.
August: Security training in high-risk areas
The security situation in Burkina Faso is a challenge due ongoing threats of terrorism. To ensure their safety, ViMPlus Activity team members completed training on how to operate within this difficult security context. They learned how to analyze the security context, how to move in high-risk areas within a group or convoy, and how to behave during irregular checkpoint stops and incidents of violence.
September: Youth initiatives
Young people from Komsilga, Roungou, Lebda, and Kamse planted more than 750 trees, including eucalyptus, cashew, baobab, moringa, guava, and mango trees, to benefit their communities. Their self-motivation to plant these trees demonstrates the impact of the Positive Youth Development approach used by the ViMPlus Activity.
October: Good agricultural practices
Women who make up the Song Zaka Simplified Cooperative of Pogoro applied good agricultural practices they learned from the ViMPlus Activity to the harvest and post-harvest handling of cowpeas to improve their crop quality and yields.
November: World Food Day
The ViMPlus Activity team celebrated the 42nd annual World Food Day alongside partners from the USAID-funded Resilience in the Sahel Enhanced (RISE) II program. On the right, a USAID representative visited the ViMPlus Activity booth.
December: Business grants
Several participants received micro grants from the ViMPlus Activity to support their small businesses. Participants who were forced to relocate from their communes of Bouroum and Barsalogho to Kaya due to the security situation continued their activities in the hopes of entering new markets and developing their businesses.
Learn more about the Victory Against Malnutrition (ViM) Activity.
Learn more about our work in Burkina Faso.
