The most popular sports are football, athletics, handball, cycling, basketball and boxing. One of Ouagadougou’s football teams, Etoile Filante (Shooting Stars), has a number of well-known players, including Ali Ouédraogo and Moumouni Zagalo, and in 1998 Burkina Faso came fourth in the Africa Nation’s Cup. There are at least ten Burkinabè footballers playing outside the country, in Holland, Belgium, France, and the Middle East, for example Mamadou Zongo, who plays for Vitesse Arnhem, a first division team in the Dutch League.

For young football players a professional career, and the fabulous wealth it can bring, is an exciting opportunity. Burkina Faso’s national under 17 football team is based at the Planète Champion training centre near Ouagadougou. The squad trains at the Stade Municipal, which was rebuilt for the Africa Nations Cup. Thirty-seven boys aged between 12 and 16 come from all over Burkina Faso to live, practise and go to school at the centre. All hope for a chance to play in the Africa Youth Cup in 1999, which is to be held in Guinea during 1999. Some of the boys plan to leave the country to play professionally and they are watched by scouts from West Africa and Europe at key matches.

Gaston Rouamba aged 16, is captain of the squad and plays in defence:

"My family lives in Ouagadougou, but I’ve stayed at the Centre for three years, since it was established. We’ve played a lot of games to get this far. Our biggest success so far was to qualify for the youth competition in France during the World Cup. We won a tough game against Mali, winning on penalties after a 0-0 draw. The atmosphere in France was amazing, with supporters from all over the world. I was so happy to be a footballer. I saw five matches, supporting Nigeria. They were unlucky not to go through.

"At home I wouldn’t have had time for football studies and school. Now I’m just one year away from taking my final school examinations. It’s very important for me to continue my education. I can’t play football forever."

During the long school lunchbreak (12-3 pm) pupils often run races or play games. Here are a few of the games school children play:

Strategy games

For example, one game of strategy involves children making a board in the dusty ground by scooping out 36 pockets, six by six. One child uses 12 pebbles as his or her pieces and the opposing child uses 12 sticks or straws. The players take it in turns to move one of their pieces. They can move vertically or horizontally, but not diagonally. The object is to get a row of three of their own pieces, either horizontally or vertically. Each time a player makes a row s/he can remove one of the opponent's pieces. The winner is the player who reduces her or his opponent to two pieces.

Le renard, passe passe

Children sit in a large circle, facing inwards. One person starts the game by trotting around the outside of the circle carrying a ball and repeating the song ‘Le renard, passe passe, Chacun a son tour, Chez le coiffeur Mamadou Keita’. At some point the runner drops the ball against the back of one of the children sitting down and then runs around the circle to escape. The child hit by the ball has to pick it up and run in pursuit, aiming to throw the ball at the runner before s/he manages to complete the circle and take the vacated space. If the child is caught s/he has to stand in the middle of the circle on one leg.

Laissez tomber, ne laissez pas tomber

The children form into pairs, one climbing onto the other’s back, and arrange themselves into a circle. A ball is thrown from one pair to the next, with half the children chanting ‘Laissez tomber’, and the other half ‘ne laissez pas tomber’. There are no winners and losers, but lots of laughter everytime a pair allows the ball to fall.

Burkinabè culture combines spiritual beliefs and social customs. The country’s traditional art forms include body decoration, fine jewellery, textiles, pottery, folk tales, and stories of magic which are passed down by word of mouth from generation to generation. Each ethnic group has its own artistic style: the Mossi, the Gourounsi, and the Bobo are best known for their carved wooden masks which are used during funeral rites. The Mossi use tall wooden antelope masks and the Bobo are famous for their horizontal butterfly masks which are painted red, black, and white.

The Lobi, who don’t use masks, usually carve wooden figures representing gods and ancestors, which are used for ancestral shrines in homes.

The Bobo and Gourounsi are also renowned for their architecture. Because they are animists, and believe that the spirits of their dead ancestors live in their homes, they are reluctant to knock houses down. Though houses are built only from timber and unfired mud, some have stood for over three hundred years. The houses of the Gourounsi around Tiébélé, near Pô, are also beautifully decorated with paintings and engravings, work that is always carried out by women.

Every so often artists from all over the world come to a granite hillside just outside Ouagadougou. They come to carve huge sculptures in the granite - of people, animals, and still-life. In recent years Burkina Faso has gained an international reputation for its film industry, and every other year Ouagadougou becomes the ‘Hollywood of Africa’ during the Panafrican Cinema Festival (FESPACO).

Traditional music is played in cabarets, a bar which serves dolo or millet beer from polished gourds. Well-known band Farafina come from the South West of Burkina Faso, and they travel around the world playing gigs, including the Womad festival in the UK.

Youssouf Kienou is lead singer and guitarist with the band Djiliya. He sings in Dioula which is the second most common language after Mooré. Djiliya’s other members play the kora, (a harp-stringed instrument with a large calabash sound-box), the djembé (a goblet shaped hand drum which can be played when standing, sitting, or squatting), the tama (a small two-ended drum squeezed under the arm to produce a variable pitch), a wooden flute, the ngoni (the three stringed local lute), and the balafon (a wooden xylophone with gourd resonators). He explains the tradition of praise-singing and some of his experiences when he has been working:

"I was born in the south-west, in a family of praise-singers. I’ve heard this music since I was a baby. My father, Baba Kienou, is chief of the praise-singers of Burkina Faso. The guitar is new, but all the other instruments are traditional among praise-singers. The tama and the ngoni are the oldest -- it’s with the ngoni that the praise-singer would go to the chief to sing the praises of his family. The tama and the ngoni are for song, for listening. The kora makes people dance. The kora, the balafon and the djembé came into use later.

"Today there are a lot of changes in the lives of praise-singers. Though we still have chiefs and kings, they are not as they used to be, so we don’t have praise-singing in the old way. My father stopped most of his work, not because he had forgotten the praises he should sing, but because his clients had died. He stopped in 1987. He’s old now.

"If someone dies you praise the corpse. In 1992 I sang the praises of an old woman. She was the oldest in her village, almost 100 years old, with white hair and no teeth. She walked with a stick, but when praise-singers visited, she would still dance. We grew up around her, and she told us stories about her youth.

"The day she died, the grandsons came to tell us. We took our instruments and started praising, and played the music, including the drums. Then we saw the old woman’s body move and we stopped. I was afraid. But her friends said ‘No, continue. She’s happy, that’s why she moves’. We accompanied her body from Ouagadougou to her home village, 120 kilometres away. The praise-singers must do that.

"In Djeliya, our music derives from our praise-singing. That’s our inspiration, when we play, and when we make new songs. I don’t feel that I’ve left praise-singing behind, just that I use it differently, for a new audience. This music is my life, my past, and my future. I couldn’t live without it. It’s in my family. I’ll teach all these things to my daughter, as she grows up. Then what she does will be up to her."

"Mum wakes me up in the morning. Sali and I hear her clanking the pots that need to be washed but we like to stay in bed a bit longer, to keep warm. It’s cold, so I wrap a shawl around me when I go out to wash my face. After I’ve washed I pray in the yard.

"If mum has lit the fire, I heat up the wu [a stiff white porridge made of millet, sorghum or maize flour] left from the previous evening and eat it for breakfast on my own. We don’t have a school uniform, but I try to keep some clothes specially for school. It’s still dark when we leave home at 6am to go to school.

"My best friend is Adjeratu, my cousin. We walk to school together and we play together. If I’m in any difficulty, I know she’ll help me. A good friend listens to what you say, and respects you. If one of us needs a drink of water, the other will give what she has.

"If we arrive in time, we help to sweep out the classrooms and collect water for cooking lunch and washing the plates and the blackboards. On some days we begin with PE (Physical Education) outside at 7.30am. I stay with the same teacher for all my lessons and science is my favourite subject -- the one I’m best at.

"At 12 o’clock we have lunch - couscous. It’s always couscous, so we could get tired of eating it. We used to collect wood at lunchtime to provide fuel for cooking. But this year the trees in the school compound have grown well, and are being cut for firewood.

"We have a lot of time before we go back into school. Children who live nearby can go home, but we have to stay and play games or read. It’s very hot at lunchtime, so we don’t play for long. We can sit under the trees, or in the shade at the front of the school to look at our books. We might do each other’s hair. It can take a long time, depending on the style you want. There are lots of styles.

"We finish school at 5pm, but before we go the class sings a song like Un Jeune Soldat (A Young Soldier) or Le Forgeron (The Blacksmith). If we’re thirsty when we come out of school we have a drink at the well. We start out as a big group but most of the others leave the path for their homes before we get to Siguin Voussé. We don’t have to hurry on the way home, so we play. Sometimes we run so that we can make time to pick sweet fruits, like mougna, to eat. We get home at 6pm, or even later.

"I’m happiest when I’m at school. It’s something special for me to do. I remember how it seemed when I first started. It was an adventure, to leave home and walk to Lergho. I’d like to go to secondary school in Garango when I’m older and become a nurse. There’s no nurse in Siguin Voussé. I’d go wherever I was sent, but I’d like to be a nurse here, in the village. I wouldn’t want to go far away. All my friends and family are here, and we’re used to living with each other.

"My favourite place is this homestead - in my mother’s house. It’s my home. It’s where I feel most comfortable. My favourite possession is my dress, my green dress. Mum bought it for me for Ramadan (the Muslim holy month). It makes me feel special, so I’ll only wear it for celebrations.

"I have a rest when I get home. If mum is cooking I might help to wash the plates. When I get the chance I warm up some water so that I can wash and get changed. I pray for the last time at 8 pm. We eat together: me, Sali, and my mother. We almost always have wu, but with different sauces. Sometimes we might have chicken, or omelettes. I like wu best, with kurdu [okra] sauce. We can also eat it with kaladu, bahurdu, gridu, horledu, sungulere....(other sauces made from local leaves and flowers). When I’m not at school I help more with the cooking. The boys don’t usually do it, just the girls. But I wouldn’t stop them -- I wouldn’t mind if the boys did some cooking.

"I don’t know anything about children in Europe. They must learn to read and write like I do. But they wouldn’t understand Bissa! I don’t think they could make koura-koura or prepare millet and cook wu. They must grow crops like we do, but I don’t know what they grow.

"The last thing I do is sweep the floor and lay out the sleeping mats. I might talk to my mum when I lie down, but sometimes she goes to sleep first. We go to bed at different times because we visit our friends around the homestead. I go to chat with Adjeratu and the others. Sometimes we tell stories to each other, or adults tell us stories. Anyone can do it. I’m able to tell stories as well. The best stories are the ones that make us laugh."

Mariam retells one of her favourite stories. Like all Burkinabè stories, this story has a moral - that the old are wise and the young are often weak.

Once there was a young woman and her husband. The woman became pregnant. One day she went to the river to collect water. She gave birth to her child but decided to abandon it, leaving it in the sand. But an old lady also arrived to collect water, and found the baby and took it home.

When the young woman went home, her husband realised that she must have given birth and left the baby somewhere. He looked for it, and asked all the children in the village to sing their songs to him, but the songs told him nothing.

The old lady looked after the baby, and he grew to become a young boy. One day the old lady gave the boy a bag in which to carry his lunch, and a whistle. She asked him to go to look after her sheep and told him that he should sing:

‘My mother buried me in the sand,
An old lady called Bankadu,
Bankadu took me out of the sand,
And made me a whistle to sing
Who doesn’t know his own?
Siyolo (the sound of the whistle)’

The boy went far with the grazing sheep, whistling and singing the song. When his father heard the song he recognised that the boy must be his son, and they were reunited.

Néré seeds are used to flavour the sauces that accompany every meal of tô or rice. Néré trees are never cleared from farming land because their black seeds are a vital part of every meal. The seeds are fermented and shaped into balls, called soumbala or Maggi Africain (African stock-cubes). When a landowner leases a plot of land to another farmer, the rights of the tree crops go to the tenant. But if there are néré trees on the land the owner will always keep the rights to the crop.

Specialities include brochettes (meat cooked on a skewer) and chicken dishes. In rural areas bush rat is considered a delicacy. Water is the most common drink, but dôlo, a home-brewed millet beer, and bissap, a reddish drink made with bissap (hibiscus) flowers are also popular in towns. Zoomkoom is a popular soft drink, made from millet flour and water flavoured with ginger and lemon and generously sweetened. (In Moore zoom means ‘flour’ and koom is water.)

In the wettest region of Burkina Faso in the Vallée du Kou close to the border with Mali live the ‘Children of the Rice’. Along the River Kou, 1300 hectares of the broad valley bottom have been turned into rice fields. Smallholdings have been allocated to local families and to poor farmers who have migrated from the drylands of the Sahel in the north of the country.

Each of the families has one hectare, broken up into small paddyfields by a grid of earth dykes. Families either take turns to use the mechanical cultivator or plough with oxen. The rice-planting scheme has been running since the early 1970s and is supported by the Chinese and Burkina Faso governments.

"Our parents came here 28 years ago, when the scheme started," explains Ramata Ouédraogo, aged 24. "We were born here, and everything we know is rice. We’re called moui kamba - the children of the rice. We have students at grammar school and university but most of the children aren’t interested in school.

"The water is always there, throughout the year. We control it, starting and stopping it when we need to. The water’s always there for us. We work every day on the rice, except on Sunday. We’re friends and we work together. The work is hard; there’s no difficulty in sleeping after a day in the rice fields. We sell part of our crop and keep part for ourselves."

"I want to stop people killing wild animals and birds, and destroying their habitat by cutting down trees. I like all the animals in the bush, but birds are my favourite, especially the brightly coloured ones like rollers and hornbills - they’re noisy and we can hear them when they’re nearby. Animals are beings. They breathe air like us. We should keep them."

Youssouf, age 11, Siguin Voussé village, Burkina Faso

"When I’m older I want to work in a bank. I want to keep playing djembé, just as I do now, no different. I haven’t thought of earning money by playing. When the New Year comes we’ll be on holiday from school, and I’ll be here playing the djembé. I hope we’ll have some friends here from Europe, and we’ll play together."

Rodrigues, age 10/11, Village Artistiques des Enfants du Theatre, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso

"I think life is simpler in Europe. It’s more complicated here. There children are more free. They can go to stay with friends for a week, even two weeks. A girl of 17 or 18, like me, can even go to stay with her boyfriend. Here that wouldn’t be allowed. I think the best time to get married would be when I’m about 20. My wish is for a good man to marry, to look after my children. And I want to be in a position to care for my parents."

Bintou, age 17, Village Artistiques des Enfants du Theatre, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso

"I have never travelled outside Burkina Faso. When I was younger, I thought Europe was a paradise where you could click your fingers and have anything. Now I know life is not so easy in Europe, and in a lot of ways not so different from our life here. People can be unhappy or lonely anywhere. One day I would like to visit Europe, to see how people live."

Assita, age 24, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso

"For the country, I wish for peace. There’s been no fighting in Burkina Faso, but we can hear on the radio and TV about wars elsewhere in Africa, even among our neighbours."

Gaston, age 16, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso

"I’d like to be a teacher, if I can go on to secondary school. My parents have said they might be able to send me. We need more schools and more teachers, so we don’t have to walk so far to school. I could teach even more pupils to become teachers in the future. And I’d like to learn how to use a camera."

Zenabu, age 10, Nida village, Burkina Faso

"A lot of tourists stay here. They come from France, Germany, Ghana and England too. A lot of them can't speak French. They seem to like it here because they can do what they want, go to the villages and see the decorations on the houses, and the calabashes and the pottery. They go to see the animals, the elephants. They don't have elephants in Europe because it's too cold. Life is different in Europe. In France they ride bicycles much further than us. They don't till the land with hoes like we do.  I want to become a teacher, to be like my teachers at school. They're friendly, but if you don't know your lessons they beat you. When I'm a teacher, I won't beat the children."

Aziz, 12 or 13, Pô, Burkina Faso

This guide book will give you background information on Burkina Faso, and its people, the Burkinabè. It contains facts, figures, and intriguing information to stimulate and inspire. Find out about: the Elephant Emperor; how trees can save lives; the best way to get around in Burkina Faso's cities; the life-span of a mud brick house. The word Burkinabè means 'a person' or 'the people' of Burkina Faso.

Burkina Faso is home to more than 60 ethnic groups, each speaking its own language. Some of these peoples, such as the Bobo, Bissa, Gourounsi and Dogon, were living in the area as early as the 12th century. Between the 13th and 15th centuries the Mossi rode north with their cavalry to establish new kingdoms which came to dominate the region. Others, such as the Fulani herders of the north and the Gourma in the east, moved in to complete the mosaic of peoples which make up the country today.

Since 1960 there have been five coups, and political power has passed back and forth between civilian and military governments. In 1983 Captain Thomas Sankara led a successful military coup and established a reforming government which renamed the country "Burkina Faso". Sankara was killed in a revolt led by his second-in-command, Captain Blaise Compaoré. Compaoré became the new President, a position which was confirmed in the 1991 election, when he was the only candidate. He was re-elected in 1998.

Burkina Faso is a landlocked country in West Africa. It is bordered by Benin, Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire, Mali, Niger, and Togo. The northern provinces lie in the Sahel, the belt of semi-arid land with low rainfall that fringes the Sahara desert. Here communities are frequently affected by cycles of drought and food shortage. During the dry season, permanent water sources are vital.

Close to Burkina Faso's northern-most border there is a remarkable freshwater lake, the Mare d'Oursi, fringed by desert. The lake is a magnet not only to local farmers, herders and livestock, but also to the many species of bird which migrate across the Sahara twice a year, breeding in Europe and wintering in Africa. Many species of wading birds feed here on their journey, and sand martins and swallows can be seen passing through on their autumn migration.

Further south the rainfall is heavier, supporting the small-scale farming which provides a livelihood for most of the population. Several national parks preserve the wooded grassland ('savannah') that once covered most of the country. The Pô and Nazinga reserves, and the Parc d'Arli and Parc du W (yes, it really is spelt like that!) provide a refuge for antelope, baboon, buffalo, elephant, hippopotamus, hyaena, leopard, lion, and warthog, as well as a wide variety of birds.

Most of Burkina Faso is very flat, but in the south-west there are rolling hills, tumbling waterfalls and dense woodlands. The country's second city and former capital, Bobo-Dioulasso, is perched on top of the spectacular rocky cliff of the Falaise de Banfora. This is the wettest part of the country, supporting rice fields and vast plantations of cashew nuts and sugar cane.

The rainy season in Burkina Faso usually begins in June and ends by October. The country is located between 9º and 15º north of the equator, and is warm throughout the year. In the hottest months, from March to May, temperatures rise to over 40º C. People say that in the North, around Gorom Gorom, the sun is hot enough to cook an egg.

Most people in Burkina Faso are farmers producing cash crops (peanuts, shea nuts, sesame, cotton), and food crops (sorghum, millet, maize, rice and vegetables). Industries include cotton lint, beverages, agricultural processing, soap, cigarettes, textiles, and gold mining. The countries natural resources include manganese, limestone, marble; small deposits of gold, copper, nickel, bauxite, lead, phosphates, zinc, and silver.

the sahel

The word Sahel is Arabic for edge or shore of the desert, and it refers to a strip of arid land which runs across Africa, from Mauritania and Senegal in the west to Somalia in the east. Water is precious because rainfall is both infrequent and sparse. The region is faced with severe land degradation, caused by increasing desertification and soil erosion.

The Sahel has few natural resources and drought is a common feature of life. Over the centuries people have developed survival strategies to cope with the harsh climate and arid land, but in recent decades many of these strategies have been abandoned in the name of development, and people have relied on cash crops, including peanuts, shea nuts, and sesame. During the 1970s and 1980s the people of the Sahel experienced drought and famine on an unprecedented scale, the cash crops failed and tens of thousands of people died.

The Sahel is a fragile environment where rainfall is sparse and unreliable. Millet and sorghum crops can grow well in the dry conditions, succeeding in a good year but failing when the rains are poor. Nomadic herders make effective use of these difficult conditions, moving their sheep, goats, cows and camels to areas which have received the most rain.

Unfortunately for the people of Burkina Faso, these dry conditions have been creeping southwards, threatening to turn farmland to desert. Farmers everywhere say that the rainfall is less than it was when they were children, and the rainy season much shorter. Rainfall records bear this out.

The reasons for these worsening conditions are not clear. Some scientists believe that the world's climate has been changing, leading to an inevitable expansion of the Sahara desert and the Sahel. But it also seems certain that deforestation has played an important part, as farmers have cleared land for their crops and removed trees for fuelwood. Without trees and plants to protect it, the soil is carried away in the dry season by hot easterly winds, and washed into the rivers during the rains. The bare land reflects the sun's heat, reducing cloud formation and further reducing the chance of rain.

To combat this serious environmental damage, since 1981 the government has been encouraging farmers to return to their traditional methods, and to introduce innovative techniques, including diguettes - stone lines laid along the contours of fields, which catch rain water and reduce soil erosion.

 
diguettes

A diguette is a line of stones which are laid along the contours of gently sloping farmland to catch rain water and reduce soil erosion. Awa Bundani, from Siguin Voussé village, explains why the diguettes are so important to her community:

"Last year the rains were good. But in some years they stop, and the crops die. If the rains fail, we go hungry. We collect all the wild fruits. We shake the shea trees to collect even the last nut, to make butter. Some fruits like those from the kar tree we only use when food is short. We eat them crushed and mixed with water.

"The diguettes have made a huge difference. Before the compost and the soil were washed away. And when the rain was poor the soil would dry out quickly. We knew it was a problem, but we didn’t know what to do about it. It was said that during our grandparents’ time there was more rain and plenty of food. The rains came earlier and lasted longer. I don’t think we get the same rains now.

"Since we built the diguettes, the land produces more. We would have had only one bag of groundnuts, where now we get two. Since last year we have wheelbarrows and tools to help us with work on the diguettes and in building houses. This makes the work much less."

Awa has four surviving children, including Mariam, who tells you all about herself and her school in the daily life section.

Burkina Faso is one of the ten poorest countries in the world. One of its biggest exports is its people, up to 3,000,000 of whom work in neighbouring countries, primarily the Côte d’Ivoire. Although 16 per cent of the population lives in urban areas, it is estimated that ninety per cent of Burkinabè continue to depend directly or indirectly on farming. One million people live in the capital, Ouagadougou - just under ten per cent of the country’s population.

Burkina Faso has more than 60 ethnic groups, but one people, the Mossi, make up more than half of the population. Their language, Mooré, is more widely spoken than French, the country’s official language. Dioula developed as a trading language, and is spoken by about six million people in western Burkina Faso and northern Côte d’Ivoire.

Other ethnic groups include the Fulani, Lobi, Bobo, Bissa, Gourounsi, Gourma and Tuareg. Most are agriculturalists, with the exception of the Fulani and Tuareg, who herd livestock. Despite the diversity of language and culture, inter-marriage is common and there is little conflict between the ethnic groups They all have one thing in common -- loyalty to their family and to their village.

Between many peoples like the Gourounsi and Bissa, Bobo and Fulani, Samo and Mossi, there is a special joking relationship which helps to defuse any tensions . For example, a Bissa man visiting a Gourounsi homestead might climb, uninvited, onto the flat roof of a house and lay down as if to sleep. The owners will shout at him and pretend to chase him off, waving sticks. Though this looks alarming, it is no more than play-acting.

Many Burkinabè are Animists, a belief which reflects the spirituality of people who live in harmony with their natural environment. Forces in the natural world are made known through their ancestors and can be used for good or evil: it is humanity which has the moral responsibility of choice. About 40 per cent of the population is Muslim, and about ten per cent Christian.

Ouagadougou is a city of a million people - just under ten per cent of the country’s population. The old Central Mosque remains one of the tallest buildings, and its twin domes are constantly circled by a cloud of mosque swallows. The twelve-storey headquarters of the West African Central Bank is perhaps the grandest of the town’s few modern high-rise buildings. The city also has its churches and the Cathedrale de l’Immaculee Conception, which overflows every Sunday morning during its four services in French and in Mooré.

Most buying and selling takes place at the Grand Marché - the Central Market - and at the stalls lining the main roads, where you can buy almost anything from a toothpick to a fridge-freezer.

The best way to get around Ouagadougou is the mobylette, or moped. The mobylette is used by many people to get around Burkina Faso's cities and towns - they are a great way to avoid rush hour traffic jams. Although the main roads are finished in tarmac, the wind carries dust from the dry plateau that surrounds the city so some riders wear blue or white masks, or wrap a scarf around their faces, to keep out the fine dust that hangs in the air. Newer roads in the city include a bike and mobylette lane.

Many of the riders are women. Some are dressed for the office in suits or vivid local fabrics. Others are traders, dashing through the traffic with bundles of clothes, plastic kitchen goods, or huge basins of fruit balanced on their heads. On the quieter, leafier streets of the country’s second city, Bobo-Dioulasso, teenagers can be seen making their way to school by mobylette, sometimes two up, rucksacks on backs.

The national literacy rate is 30 per cent for males; 15 per cent for females. Only about 40 per cent of children attend primary school, with just nine per cent continuing through secondary school. Schools are usually in a reasonable condition and have basic equipment, but there are not enough of them and, in any case, many children’s parents cannot afford to send them. Parents have to buy exercise books, pens, and pencils as well as pay school fees. Legally the size limit for one class is 65 children, but in many rural areas classes are much bigger because there are not enough schools. If a school is full, some children cannot get a place and they have to stay at home and try again the next year.

The school week runs from Monday to Saturday lunchtime, and the school is closed on Thursdays. Lessons are taught in French, the country’s official language, which is many children’s second or third language, especially in rural areas. It is estimated that only 15 per cent of Burkinabè can speak French. At school the pattern of lessons is set by a national curriculum which timetables each subject for each year group, so that children across the country are always studying the same subject at any given time. Subjects include Production, when children might learn to grow maize, plant trees or keep chickens on school land. The children have a break during the hottest hours between noon and 3pm, when they eat lunch, play games and have a siesta.

Recently a number of laws have been passed in an attempt to make it easier for disabled people to have an education and to take an active role in society. Often parents can only afford to send one child to school, and able-bodied children are educated rather than their disabled siblings. Some of the laws are intended to provide school fees and other help so that disabled children can get an education.

Angèle Sanou, who is herself disabled, founded the Disabled Women’s Association. Angèle was lucky because her parents made sure that she went to school. Many disabled children do not get the chance to go to school, either because their parents think it is not worthwhile or cannot afford to send them.

"Disabled people are among the most disadvantaged in Burkina Faso," she explains. "You could say that among disabled people we have almost 100 per cent illiteracy. In a family it is the disabled child who will miss out on school. With an education, you still cannot find work as a teacher, or a civil servant. Employers look at your disability, not at what you are able to do. Even in the law there is discrimination. That’s why I created the Disabled Women’s Association.

"We emphasise the need to educate disabled children and their parents. In Burkina Faso children with mobility problems can go to mainstream schools. But we feel that deaf and blind children need special schools, because this is the only way to ensure that they have special facilities. Adult literacy is also important, because so many people have missed out on education, and are still missing out. Women are particularly disadvantaged. Firstly they are disabled, secondly they are women. They find themselves obliged to work in the informal sector.

"When I was young, disabled people were almost unknown, unseen. Having a disabled child shamed a family and they were kept hidden. It was thought they had been punished by God, or were the victims of witchcraft before they were even born. They were simply a burden on the family and spending money on education was seen as a waste. Now parents are learning the importance of school, and they send their children if they can.

"We want to sensitise the whole population, but most of all we have to sensitise disabled people, who feel they are inferior, and their families. We use radio, TV, newspapers, and posters to raise awareness. We have to remind people that we exist, and that we have rights. Education has empowered me to defend my rights."