Help rehabilitate a community center in Burkina Faso
This project is fully funded. Thank you!
Your Impact
With the support of our donors, Spirit of America helped rehabilitate a multipurpose sports facility, mini library, and community garden that helped insulate an at-risk neighborhood in Burkina Faso from extremism and violence by strengthening social unity and building positive change.
This project is fully funded. THANK YOU!
Burkina Faso, neighboring Mali and Niger in western Africa, has been struggling for many years to contain the influence and violent activities of terrorist groups operating with relative impunity across the vast Sahel region. Many of these groups are taking advantage of vulnerable populations that feel marginalized and forgotten because of the crisis of political unrest, economic uncertainty, and community tensions plaguing the region. Burkina Faso, which experienced two successive coup d’états in 2022, is at a critical crossroads as the nation seeks to reverse the tide of instability.
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In 2023, one Burkinabe neighborhood organization, Association Bon Voisinage, in the capital city of Ouagadougou identified a small but significant way to build community resilience and better insulate their neighborhood from the threats and influence of the terrorist groups that prey on existing community tensions. Stronger and more unified communities are more resilient to external stability shocks and less prone to influence and infiltration by violent extremist ideologies.
Supporting their efforts and ideas, the US military and Spirit of America helped to rehabilitate a multipurpose sports facility, mini library, and community garden to help bring the community together and build resilience.
While the rehabilitation project had an immediate impact, the neighborhood group stated that the long-term vision of the effort was that the project would serve as a model for other communities around Burkina Faso to encourage social unity and build positive change.
