Samusocial Burkina Faso

 

Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso – created in 2001

 

Burkina Faso is ranked 183rd out of 187 countries on the Human Development Index (HDI) and 43% of its population lives below the poverty line. Created in 2002, SamusocialBurkinaFaso (SSBF) is an association recognized as a public utility since 2013, which operates in partnership with the Ministry of Women, National Solidarity and Family. Within the network of child protection actors, it provides medical-psycho-social and educational care for children and young people who are victims of social exclusion, in street situations.

 

The situation in Burkina Faso has been characterised for the past seven years by a security and humanitarian crisis, the widespread precarity of communities, the failure to respect the fundamental rights of children, and a hardening of the institutional response to the presence of children and young people on the street, etc. The increase in the number of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), with an estimated 1,579,976 people on 31 December 2021 (according to the National Council for Emergency Relief and Rehabilitation (CONASUR)) and their strong presence in the country’s major cities (around 8,000 families in Ouagadougou according to humanitarian actors1 ), further complicates the situation.

 

As a key player in the protection net for children and young people living on the street and in the care chain, it is essential for samusocialBurkinaFaso to continue and strengthen the work of identifying and creating links on the street, on the one hand, and providing quality care via the medical practice, the day care center and the emergency shelter, on the other, for the benefit of children and young people living on the street. It is also essential to offer care and awareness-raising activities in vulnerable communities where IDPs and foster families are concentrated, with a view to preventing children from going on the street.

 

Activities:

 

 

Mobile Assistance Teams (EMA)

A mobile assistance team 7 days a week for street children and youth, with the intervention of a psychologist once a week. The daily and close intervention of samusocialBurkinaFaso‘s EMAs contributes to re-establishing an essential social link, which is in itself a component of social reintegration.

 

 

Emergency shelter

The open Emergency Shelter with Nursing and Psychosocial Care (CHUSIP) 7 days a week and 24 hours a day with a dormitory with a capacity of 20 places intends to accommodate the children most in danger or in need of recovery. The CHUSIP offers medical consultations, social/psychological interviews, activities, a hygiene service and a food service.

 

 

Day care center

SamusocialBurkinaFaso‘s day care center is composed of a hygiene area, a medical office and a medical-psychological team.

 

Advocacy action

The SamusocialBurkinaFaso organizes awareness and prevention events for the population and public actors in Burkina Faso (through screenings and debates, radio programs or spots, newsletters, etc.). In order to forge new links, the SamusocialBurkinaFaso organized an academic seminar at the Ecole des Cadre Moyens en Travail Social, which allowed for interaction with a hundred or so future specialized social work students.

 

 

Support to partner associations

The SamusocialBurkinaFaso supports local partner structures in the realization of construction projects, medical permanence, reinforcement and training, participation and joint organization of events.

 

 

 

 

Key figures for 2023:

1,056 beneficiaries of the action

243 Day and night outreach activities

156 People sheltered 

923 Social or educational interviews

2,154 Medical consultations and care

53 Psychological interviews

 

More informations:

Facebook : Samusocial Burkina Faso

Website: www.samusocialburkinafaso.org