Life is a struggle for women in Burkina Faso
Tradition, climate, economy and the country’s laws are not favourable towards women. Life is harsh in Burkina Faso.
Poor village women in Burkina Faso work hard and fifteen hour work days are not unusual. They work non-stop—at home and in the fields—from 4am to 10pm every day.
Women are not allowed to own the very land they farm, because customary law excludes women from land ownership, preventing them from all but the gruelling work of farming with crude tools. Visiting village fields is an eye-opening experience as women do backbreaking work with tools that look like something dug up by archaeologists.
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| Village women in Burkina Faso work long hours |
A typical day for a village woman
Women rise early to sweep their homes, fetch water (not unusual for a well to be miles away) and prepare their children for school, if there is one nearby and if they have the money to pay school fees.
Sometimes a family must decide which child to send to school because they do not have the money for all to attend. Children are also needed at home to perform daily household tasks, work in the field and babysit siblings.
Then women head for the small plots of land they farm, but do not own, to tend crops with no modern tools. After several hours working in the hot sun with temperatures running from 90 to 110, they return home to meet children who have returned from school.
If food is available, the mid-day meal is the “main” meal of the day.
Villagers eat dough made with millet cooked in a pot over an open fire. It reminds one of dumplings. Sauce is made with tomatoes, onions and whatever leaves, seeds and vegetables are available.
This is not an adequate diet for growing children and their hard working mothers.
After a short rest, women return to the fields or to another task to earn income.
If they didn’t get a turn at the well in the morning, they return back to their plots to carry water, two watering cans at a time, to their crops.
Finally, after a day of literal non-stop work, they go to bed at 10pm or so.
It is long past dark and there is no electricity, no running water, no relaxing diversions.
Women living in cities do not have a better life. They are often forced into prostitution. It is not unusual to see very young Burkinabé girls with older men. From these men receive some food and a place to sleep. What else can an uneducated woman, with no property do? The situation is very grave with HIV/AIDS spreading to the young before they have a chance to really have a life and family of their own.
ACTS programs develop potential
This is why ACTS provides training to build skills other than farming. Literacy brings women into a new world where knowledge opens doors of opportunity. Literacy allows women an understanding of truth and gives them ways to develop their future.Vocational training gives women alternative ways to produce income when crops fail. Micro-enterprise training gives them good business sense…something never considered among the poor, especially among village women.Research, by groups such as the World Bank, shows that when we invest in women, there is an “important multiplier effect,” because women are mostly likely to share economic gains with family and community members.
ACTS program provides identity, builds skills and hope
Women need a way out of toil and despair.
Women need confidence. They need to know they have worth and can accomplish great things even if they live in humble surroundings.
They need to have courage to develop skills.
And more importantly, they need to move from the feelings of inadequacy to hopefulness.
ACTS programs directly reach more than 9,000 women in Burkina Faso.
ACTS Ministry fosters hope
ACTS ministry was founded by Joanna Ilboudo, a woman unique for her time and country. She founded ACTS as an organization envisioned, planned and implemented by indigenous women.
The effects of poverty are discussed by world leaders as they meet together. As long as the leaders suggest stop-gap solutions and don’t look close enough to see people groups as individuals with rights and dignity, the poor are locked in a cycle of poverty, sickness and ignorance.
ACTS philosophy is that sustainable development cannot be realized until women have access to basic necessities of life and education. ACTS empowers women through training in Biblical truths, literacy, income generation and micro-enterprise, immediate medical care, practical life skill training and promotion of human rights.
Women involved in the ACTS program grow in faith, in confidence and in hope.
