The ATD Fourth World International Movement organized a seminar in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso from February 25 to March 3, 2013 on the theme: “People in extreme poverty are partners in education truly for everyone.” This was a part of regional seminars that took place in the framework of Millennium Development Goals (MDG).

There were 65 participants who had spent a lot of time preparing this meeting with their communities. There were people who had fought every single day to eradicate poverty without having ever attended school, university graduates, government employees, representatives from NGOs and international organizations, from Senegal, the Central African Republic, Mali, Ethiopia, Burkina-Faso, Belgium, France and Great Britain.

They first of all tried to understand, together, the fundamental knowledge required for each and every person to build their lives: knowledge learned in schools, knowledge learned by experience, traditional knowledge, etc.

And how they could learn from one another without any conflict, as is too often the case. Some, such as Fatimata Kafando, said how much their parents’ courage gave them the strength to want to learn (Watch video).

They all shared the conviction that: “Even very poor people have ideas. If no one recognizes these ideas, poverty becomes even worse.”

They worked to succeed in school, saying that: “It’s to be useful to yourself, your family, your community and society as a whole.” They emphasized how important it was for each child to have a birth certificate, as well as the damage caused by extreme poverty, hunger, and what happens when some teachers do not care about efforts made by parents. They encouraged each country to continue in their efforts to make school really free and foster friendship and cooperation between all students. Experiences carried out in the field in Senegal, Burkina Faso, Mauritius and in France have allowed us to better understand the importance, at neighborhood levels, of access to education for everyone.

At the end of this seminar, joint proposals were presented during a public retransmission attended by the representative of the Minister of National Solidarity and Social Action.

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Related article:
Quality Education: ATD Burkina Faso’s Work Recognized