Home

Sundays

Contact Us

This Week

Weekly Activities

Spectrum (children)

Holiday Club

Alpha Course

Links

Recent Sermons

Burkina Faso Project

Our project in partnership with International Needs UK

 

Can you imagine...

It is hard to imagine what it is like not to have good medical care near to where you live.

Burkina Faso in West Africa is one of the poorest countries on the planet. On the UN Human Development Index it ranks 174 out of 177 countries and 46% of the people live below the poverty line of less than US$1 per day. Even if there were a medical facility nearby most people would not be able to afford any kind of medical treatment for themselves or their family.

International Needs has purchased the land and paid architects’ fees. Consultation rooms have been built, with a pharmacy, A&E department, maternity unit and laboratory units currently under construction. They have also recently sent a container full of medical equipment so that the hospital can start to serve the local community. This arrived at the project in early October 2011.

Can you imagine...

Imagine no school near you (hold back the cheers!). Imagine the reality of not being able to read or write or being able to calculate anything past the most simple arithmetic. Imagine knowing there would be no opportunity for you to get a job apart from helping the family farm a small, dry, hard, plot of land.

to charge a small amount to pay the staff. This is a minimal amount but anything is hard for some families to raise – they are just too poor. We have managed to get 61 children sponsored but at present 25 still cannot pay. The school has a good reputation already – both with the local community and with the national government. It has appointed a new headmaster and 38 staff. It is situated right next door to the medical centre.

One hospital for half a million people

In Bobo Dioulasso, the second largest city in the country, there is one hospital for half a million people. As a result of this lack of medical care average life expectancy is just 51 years for males and 55 for females, and only 61% of births are attended by healthcare personnel (sources: World Health Organisation statistics & BF government figures).

 

Building a medical centre

Our vision is to build a medical centre that can help ordinary people as they struggle against disease.  It will provide pre and post natal care, an accident and emergency facility to deal with the immediate, urgent day-to-day accidents, a laboratory to diagnose blood disorders including Malaria and HIV/AIDS, along with diagnosis of the usual children's illnesses.

Building a school

Our vision is to be build a school that will provide more than just this basic form of education  and we are part way there. The school is up and running – to a degree.

 

Good News School

There are 315 pupils! But there is no state sponsorship for education and so the school has

However we still need provide better resources for the children at the school. They have so very little of what we take so much for granted. From different colour pens and pencils, to paper, to exercise books, and they have very few toys between them.

 

We at North Cheam Baptist Church plan to send a container to the school with all these kinds of things. A full list will be posted here soon of the sort of things we would like to be able to send. We are conscious that we have so much in our local community and Christmas is a time when we can say ‘thank you’ for all we have and help those who have so very little by giving a little from our plenty.

 

Please join us this year, and make a world of a difference to the people of Burkina Faso.

 

North Cheam Baptist Church

Ridge Road

Sutton

Surrey SM3 9LY

Tel: 020 8644 7360

Email: burkinafaso@ncbc.org.uk