Dear friends, I have many things I want to say here, but before I do, I hope you have all heard by now the good news about BRIGHT II Phase II project that was approved on September 31, 2009. The second phase will be implemented over the next three years. We should all be proud of Plan’s leadership and the good collaboration among BRIGHT I implementing consortium members that have made this possible, namely Catholic Relief Services (CRS), the Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE) and the Tin Tua Association.
The second phase is worth $25,867,928. It includes $3,367,928 contribution from Consortium members and $ 22,500,000 from Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) through USAID. These funds will help with “la normalization” of the 132 BRIGHT schools built in 2006-2009 under BRIGHT I. You see, English does not have a short word for this. They say something like; the funds will help upgrade the 132 three class schools to full primary schools with six classes.
We are grateful to the American people for this generous contribution to the girls’ education in Burkina Faso. As we embark on this new phase, I thought we should recapitulate on what the project has achieved to this point. Over 19,000 children attended BRIGHT schools in 2008-2009. More than a half of these children were girls. The Mathematica evaluation conducted in 2009 confirmed that BRIGHT school children were very bright indeed. Here is the link to the Mathematica evaluation in case you need more details.
As for the new phase, it comes fully loaded, with 396 new classrooms to be built, 396 additional teachers’ lodgings, 264 three latrine blocks, 122 pre-school classes called “Bisongos”, 15 additional water boreholes, solar energy equipment for the 20 most performing schools, etc…
As we are flexing our muscles to get out there and start digging, I did not only see the new school buildings going up, I also saw the BRIGHT spirit building up around the project, at Plan Burkina Faso as an organization. Checking my Thesaurus again, I refreshed my memory on what BRIGHT means: brilliant, vivid, intense, dazzling, light, clear, not dark, intelligent….
I saw the BRIGHT project implemented by men and women with a human face. I heard this year about two Plan Sanmatenga staff that saved a child dumped in a latrine in the middle of the night. Last August, I saw an electronic emergency call from Plan Namentenga to save a baby girl with a life threatening condition; the way Plan’s staff responded, shipping the mother and the baby to Ouagadougou for an urgent surgery was touching. Then I heard about a colleague at Plan Ouagadougou, who pulled the seven year Adjara from the street where she was working as hard as her mother, burning her little fingers to roast and sell plantain to people passing by (see picture below). The colleague shipped the child’s mother home to get her a birth certificate, paid the tuition and the child is now in school where she belongs.
These stories are just an illustration of how the child centered approach, which is at the center of Plan’s work, has inspired many in this organization, so much that they reach out to shed light and make the world a better place. Without preaching, that’s what we call “The BRIGHT Spirit”.
Makasa Kabongo
BRIGHT Chief of Party
