BURKINA CONNE C TION NEWSLETTER OF THE FRIENDS OF BURKINA FASO 2008 - NO. 1 LAM B S FOR SC HOOL WINS In this issue: UNDRAISING OMPETITION FBF Wins AGC F C Award by Suzanne Plopper, Project Manager n February, FBF won one of four $50,000 assume responsibility for the costs of the President’s Yiri awards in the first-ever America’s Giving remaining years of schooling by raising and IChallenge (AGC) sponsored by the Case selling the lambs each year. Field Notes Foundation, PARADE Magazine and Global This innovative competition was from Jeanine Giving. The competition in the “international announced to us shortly before Christmas. charity” category was fierce but the 1,598 A major purpose of AGC, according to the Omigbéfitè individual, one-time donors put us in 4th place. Case Foundation, was to encourage the use of Project Makes However, we came in 1st place based on the online tools for philanthropy. Overwhelmed Progress total amount of money we generated. by the wide range of networking tools and You, your family members, friends, possessing modest computer skills, I was 2007 Financial colleagues and acquaintances contributed a ready to pass on the competition until Kristie Report total of $41,879 to our cause! Together with McComb, our optimistic leader, informed our existing funds, FBF will be able to support me that Nancy Weis-Sanfo, our energetic NEEED, a local community-based organization newsletter editor, was quite web-savvy and Board Updates in Ouahigouya, in providing school materials knew all about Facebook, blogs, widgets and and a lamb over the next four years for 1,200 the like. Nancy quickly set up our widget and MCC girls in their first year of primary school – we were up and running! Compact 300 more girls than we originally envisioned When we sent our first email on December supporting. As many of you know, this project 23, 2007 to request that each of you donate Join our is self-sustaining because the girls’ families $10, we had no idea about the ride we Listserv would be in for over the next six weeks. Nor did we have any Welcome the idea how far we would have to New CD extend our request to make into the “final four.” Within days, Welcome an informal but dedicated team the New (Kristie McComb, Nancy Weis- Ambassador Sanfo, Caroline Chambre, Ashley Garley, Tom Vollrath, Lyndsey Renew your Wilson-Williams and myself) Membership began devising our plan to sustain the fundraising effort for the Order your duration of the competition. FBF T-shirt What an exhilarating ride it was with so many of you enduring the ups and downs on the Lambs For School Project girls and their parents. continued on page 10 PRESIDENT ’S YIRI by Kristie McComb, ’01-’03 hat an exciting start to 2008 for You can read more about the project and the the Friends of Burkina Faso! If I competition in the cover story but I want to Whad to give 2008 a theme, based say again on behalf of the Board, officers and on FBF’s good news to date, it would be committee members of FBF, thank you! Thank Board of Directors President “meeting and exceeding Peace Corps’ 3rd you for taking on the challenge with us, and Kristie McComb, ’01-’03 goal.” In 1961, with the creation of the Peace thank you for encouraging your friends and Vice President Corps to promote world peace and friendship, family to do the same. We could not have won Bob Coffey, ’67-’69 President Kennedy defined the 3rd part of the this competition from our membership base Treasurer organizational mission as “helping promote a alone and are so grateful that you were able to Suzanne Plopper, ’67-’69 better understanding of other peoples on the help us get 1,598 individual people interested in Secretary Michael Kolber, ’03-’05 part of Americans.” this cause and the country so close to our hearts. Some will argue that simply existing For all of you that helped to put Burkina Faso Technology Chair Guy Fipps, ’75-’77 as the FBF means that we meet our 3rd in the minds of many, thank you! goal objectives every day. And with our Community Relations Chair I would also like to thank each of you Caroline Chambre, ’02-’04 website, our newsletter, for your advocacy efforts Projects Chair in our responses to people both in 2007 and 2008. Tom Vollrath, ’67-’70 who contact us out of the When called upon via our Technology Committee blue to learn more about community listserv, you Website Content Editor John Sneed, ’67-’69 Burkina Faso, we are have routinely made calls educating and sensitizing to our Congressmen and Database Coordinator Tajany Ki, ’01-’03 people to the country we Congresswomen to advocate Community Relations know and love. on behalf of Burkina Faso Committee In addition, each of and the Peace Corps. You’ve Membership Coordinator Tajany Ki, ’01-’03 us, touched deeply by our stepped up to advocate for NPCA Liaison in-country experiences, changes to the U.S. farm bill Lyndsey Wilson-Williams, regularly puts Burkina to protect the livelihood of ’01-’03 Faso “on the map” for Burkinabé cotton farmers; Newsletter Editor our friends, colleagues, Nancy Weis-Sanfo, ’02-’04 you’ve advocated for acquaintances and family Kristie McComb increased spending for the PC-BF Liaison Ashley Garley, ’02-’04 members. But collectively, in the past few Peace Corps; and most recently, you advocated months, we’ve done an especially good job at that Congress maintain funding levels for the ABURWA Liaison Drissa Dao, Burkinabè this task and I want to take this opportunity to Millennium Challenge Corporation Compact Projects Committee recognize all of us for our successful efforts. to be signed with the government of Burkina Molly Chambers, ’99-’01 If you haven’t heard the good news Faso. Bob Coffey, ’67-’69 Drissa Dao, Burkinabè yet – and this is truly extraordinary news So be proud of yourselves! You, WE, are Katie Larose, ’02-’04 Tom Fox, ’67-’69 for our volunteer-run organization – our making a difference – even when our successes Anastasia Hopkinson, Lambs For School project was awarded are not always as obvious as $92,000 in the ’67-’69 Suzanne Plopper, ’67-’69 one of four $50,000 awards in the first ever bank for girls’ education. With your sustained Sibiri Sawadogo, Burkinabè Patti Thomas, ’77-’80 America’s Giving Challenge sponsored by support and commitment, we will continue to Tom Vollrath, ’67-’70, the Case Foundation, PARADE Magazine build on our many exciting successes to date, Etienne Yonly, Burkinabè Rachel Zerbo, ’97-’00 and GlobalGiving, one of FBF’s partners for both big and small. As the proverb goes, “Petit project fundraising. To contact a member of the à petit l’oiseau fait son nid.” (Little by little, leadership team, please visit This generous prize along with the the bird builds his nest.) Let’s keep up our http://fbf.tamu.edu. ~$42,000 that FBF raised in the six weeks of commendable efforts and 2008 may come to a the competition will allow FBF to support the close as extraordinarily as it began for FBF. education of 1,200 young girls over the next Merci encore and here’s looking forward to four years in Yatenga Province in northern the rest of the year ahead! Burkina Faso. 1,200 young girls – incroyable! Kristie FIELD NOTES FROM JEANINE by Jeanine Jackson, U.S. Ambassador to Burkina Faso am pleased to report that the U.S.-Burkina in Children program funded by the Department of Faso friendship has grown stronger during the Labor was just completed and we plan to implement I last two years and would like to provide you other Trafficking in Persons programs. an update on progress on our four priorities. Mutual Understanding: Our Martin Luther Economic Development: Burkina Faso King Library, American Language Center, and became eligible for U.S. Millennium Challenge dozens of exchange visits, lectures, seminars, Corporation (MCC) programs based on progress Muslim outreach and cultural events have in ruling justly, investment in people, and reached thousands. Check out our website at economic freedom. The MCC Threshold program http://ouagadougou.usembassy.gov. constructed 132 primary school complexes that Regional Stability and Security: The significant focus on girls (http://www.brightnews.org). A increase in military cooperation includes training Compact will be signed this summer for up to three Burkina Army battalions for peacekeeping $520 million that will add classrooms to the 132 operations in Darfur. Burkina Faso is also directly schools, and finance roads, agriculture and land supporting the war on terrorism in West Africa. reform projects. Supporting these Goals: We just broke ground Food for Peace continues to provide essential for a new embassy in Ouaga 2000 which will be school lunch, nutrition and food security assistance. completed in late 2009. Burkinabé are now eligible PDATES The very successful USAID-funded “Kick AIDS” for 5-year tourist/business visas and we have noted U program educated thousands of youth on HIV/ a significant increase in the number of Burkinabé AIDS prevention. The U.S. contribution to studying in the U.S. Y Burkina’s portion of the Global Fund for HIV/ And most importantly, since my arrival in AIDS, malaria and TB is sizable, and we have March 2006 I have sworn-in three new groups of ASS leveraged private-public partnerships to gain Peace Corps Volunteers and visited many of them B major contributions of medicines and medical in their villages to see for myself their important supplies to respond to emergencies and general contribution to poverty reduction and mutual M health needs.