Monday, June 8, 2015

TOMS Shoes and Coming to the End of My Service


The Beoog Biiga program that I have been working with at Catholic Relief Services for the past ten months works to support children at community-based preschools, bisongos like the one my community and I started in Silmidougou, and at elementary schools in Central North region of Burkina Faso. This project, funded by the US Department of Agriculture has been in place since 2011. The second phase of this program, which started in 2014, is focusing on improving education quality while still trying to improve the number of children that are in school. With this in mind, we decided to start a partnership with TOMS shoes to distribute shoes to students that successfully came to school throughout the school year.
Our program was given enough shoes by TOMS to give them to all the students in our project zone that are in 4th, 5th, and 6th grade. We have focused on these grades because they have the highest dropout rates. We have been going around the zone to distribute the shoes.

Students that were given TOMS shoes. They walked almost 10 kilometers to come collect their shoes.
On a quick side note, I did my final visit to Silmidougou, my site for my first two years here, during one of our distribution trips. We working in the area and so I made plans to spend two nights and spend some time saying goodbye to everyone. It was extremely hard to say goodbye, but we were all able to talk about all of the great fun we have had together and all of the wonderful activities that are still going on in Silmidougou (including the bisongo – thank you everyone that helped support that project!).

Wend na ko-d nindaare Asseta! See you next time Asseta!
Alright, back to TOMS. The goal is to give the shoes out in future years to students with an attendance rate of over 90 percent to support children that are truly making an effort to come to school.
The program has been a huge challenge for me since my boss gave me the opportunity to have a lead role in the project. I wrote the application, including doing the market analysis where I interviewed over 20 shoe vendors and almost 80 parents to find out whether there is a need in our communities for TOMS’ shoes. 
Also, now that the shoes have arrived in Burkina Faso, I have been leading the distribution, creating the awareness raising information (on how to properly wash your feet, how to wash the shoes, and why it is important to wear shoes). It has been a very challenging project, but so far very successful. As this is my last week at the Catholic Relief Services office, I am sad that I will not get to see it to its conclusion, but I am certain that the rest of my team will do a wonderful job completing it!
My time in Burkina is coming to a close and while this is a hard to face, I know that there will be opportunities in the future to see these wonderful people again and follow-up on the activities that we have worked together on.
 
I hope to get another post written up about the other activities and things I have been doing since the revolution in the fall. It has been a whirlwind of activity! But for now, here are just a few pictures I took of things I will miss from Silmidougou (and Burkina in general).


Goodbye little ones that pick their nose

 Goodbye tรด and snot sauce (dried gumbo)

Goodbye breakfast beans and rice (benga)


Goodbye naked children


 Goodbye dangerous ways of biking your two year old

There are less than two weeks until my service as a Peace Corps Volunteer is finished! What an incredible three years it has been!

Followers