Association pour la Promotion Féminine de Gaoua
The APFG is a female association of the South of Burkina Faso, founded in 1992, and working for women rights and empowerment in all fields (social, economic, work...) as well as against female genital mutilation and early marriages.
In CIM Burkina, we work with the APFG as a local partner in most of our projects, because of its experience, endeavour and results.
The APFG counts with more than 1,200 associates and thousands of supporters, and focuses its works in the region of Gaoua, the capital of Poni Province in the southeast of the country, and centre of the Lobi peoples, with a population of more than 65,000 inhabitants.
The APFG objectives include:
- Carrying-out socio-economic and cultural activities to improve the living conditions of women.
- Seeking support for the schooling of girls and boys without resources, as well as the continuing of their schooling.
- Providing women with an organizational framework agreement and education to solve their specific problems.
- Identifying and study the barriers to women's development (customs, female genital mutilation, dowry, early marriages, polygamy, levirate marriages, etc.).
- Contributing to the education and the awareness of women to defend their rights and girls' rights through recreational activities (forum theatre) and organisation of courses and conferences, not only in Gaoua and in the rest of Burkina Faso, but also in various African countries.
- Helping with small micro-credits to the improvement of the associates' daily life and as a resource to begin profit-generating activities.
- Training women in the care of domestic animals for household consumption, in poultry breeding and in pig fattening.
- Promoting campaigns to improve children's care and feeding through nutrition classes, as well as sanitation and health in homes.
The APFG has social premises in Gaoua where it undertakes some of its training and economic activities for its own financiering: production of shea cream and soaps, production and sale of dolo (a craft beer made with fermented millet), dying and sale of fabrics and other activities.
They also maintain a theatre group with which they carry out awareness-raising activities, highlighting the work carried out in the field of eradication of female genital mutilation, through performances, talks, radio programmes and other activities. Also, the forum theatre is useful to promote care for the environment by promoting the use of solar cookers to the domestic production of dolo, also highlighting the importance of reforestation to prevent desertification.
Their latest major project has been the setting up of a vocational training school for girls who are not in school or have dropped-out of school. There, they learn different professions like IT jobs, hairdressing, dressmaking, fabric dyeing, shea production, etc., including training in household economics and rights. This vocational training centre is homologated by the Ministry of Education of Burkina Faso.
Their blog: http://apfg.wordpress.com/
