International programs
Environmental Education and Training
1. Environmental Training of Members
Situation: Managing the environment implies knowing it, knowing other people's experience on the subject, having a better understanding of different approach strategies. Environmental training will make it possible to tackle specific questions related to the management of environmental problems in different regions of Burkina Faso.
Objective: Maintain and improve the knowledge of the members concerning the protection of the environment, especially to make them acquire experience in methods and techniques for the protection and the restoration of the environment. In order to reach this objective GC Burkina Faso intends to train the different members according to pre-determined specificities through short duration trainings and to organize training workshops and seminars.
2. Organization of Two National Seminars / Workshops
Objective: In order to promote the exchange of experiences in environmental matters in Burkina Faso, GC Burkina Faso will organize 2 seminars / workshops to which people involved in the protection of the environment, researchers and decision makers will be invited.
3. Informal Talks - Debates
Situation: The degradation of the environment is not only due to the inconsequence of social actors, but also and above all, to unawareness as regards the effect of certain negative practices of a significant part of the population.
Objective: Organize periodic meetings with target social groups to discuss questions related to environmental management in order to awake people's awareness and enlighten them about positive attitudes they should have to ensure environmental protection. These meetings will make it possible to gather a number of groups concerned with the issue and make their different development activities more effective. This will also be an opportunity of creating a common strength, a permanent consultation between different elements from the groups concerned before any action is undertaken.
4. Green Cross
Situation: Since its recognition on the national level, the Association of Volunteers for the creation of GC Burkina Faso, now transformed into GC Burkina Faso has organized each year a "Green Cross Days" in order to awake people's awareness and urge them to act towards the environment.
Objective: These Green Cross Days is meant to create a general environmental awareness on the national level and to make people know about GC Burkina Faso and its activities through specific activities like games, actions in favour of the environment and sports.
National programs
1. Fight against Desertification
Situation: In Burkina Faso, drought and the mismanagement of natural resources by man combined to bring about, more than four decades ago, what represents today one of the main environmental disaster in sub-Sahara Africa, that is, desertification. The consequences of the desertification are multiple: loss of an important part of the ecological heritage; important decrease in agricultural production and a chronic food insecurity; poverty and misery of populations; destabilization of lineage groups leaving their lands for more hospitable areas.
Objective: Protect and restore natural vegetation. Prepare arable lands to fight against erosion, recover degraded soils and ensure a better conservation of rainwater. Produce compost to regenerate soils. Produce seedlings of forest trees and grow 200 hectares of village forests. Turn of soils green again by means of afforestation. This program includes the fight against the water-Hyacinth, in many aspects a very harmful and polluting plant which should be eradicated through a campaign initiated in 1995. A second battle is conducted against desertification by promoting reforestation. In 1996, Green Cross Burkina Faso planted nearly 10,000 saplings in the provinces of Yatenga, Katiogo and Comoe. This action and a joint project of Green Cross International are aimed at regeneration to turn Sahelian soils green again.
2. Promotion of Long Lasting Houses
Situation: The excessive use of materials such as sand and gravel for the construction of houses causes a serious degradation of the environment by speeding up the erosion. This situation is aggravated by the high population growth rate of around 3% in Burkina Faso.
Objective: Develop a new form of house building that will mainly use local materials such as bricks and roofing tiles made from a special form of mud. There are many advantages linked to this new form of building:
- Preservation of the environment, through a limitation in the use of certain materials such as sand.
- Promotion of a new type of houses having a remarkable thermic comfort, what will allow a reduction of the electricity consumption.
- Contribute to the creation of new jobs.
3. Improving Sanitation: Project for the building of Latrines and Draining Wells
Situation: Most latrines in Burkina Faso are built according to traditional ways, and as such they give rise to many disadvantages like the presence of flies, cockroaches and other noxious insects; bad smells; pollution of underground water due to the depth of the latrines (5 to 7 m.) and pollution of the surface water as a result of the emptying of traditional latrines.
This situation is the cause of many diseases due to the contact between people and human waste, which is favoured by the use of traditional latrines. Despite the seriousness of the problem, the access to improved latrines remains inaccessible to most of the people.
Objective: Make the people aware of the dangers related to a bad management of excrete and used waters. Train people in the building of latrines and draining wells. Build improved latrines and draining wells disseminated in 3 cities of the country (Ouagadougou, Bobo-Dioulasso and Ouahigouya).
