Burkina Faso is the fourth poorest country in the world. Most of the population is comprised of subsistence farmers.
Rainfall is highly unpredictable which makes it difficult for them to grow enough food. In addition, the literacy level among the ethnic Gourma people is less than 30%.
In eastern Burkina Faso, World Concern is working with the Gourma people. They are poor subsistence farmers who raise livestock and grow millet, sorghum, maize and peanuts.
Less than 10% of the Gourma are Christian, and although there are more than 450 churches spread throughout this region, there is a need for trained pastors.
To tackle these needs, World Concern is providing agricultural professors at the Doulos Bible School (with 54 students) and at the Center for Biblical and Agropastoral Formation (with approximately 75 students). Both are four-year schools.
Since the students will probably continue to be subsistence farmers even as pastors, World Concern is providing classroom and field training in sustainable agriculture and agroforestry.
Students grow crops and trees on fields at the schools, which also serve as demonstration farms. Students are accompanied by their families during the four years of their residencies, and must be able to grow their own crops to meet their food and financial needs. This allows the students to have sufficient food and firewood, and be able to generate income to help pay for their tuition.
As students graduate and take on their roles as pastors, they will also take with them the resource conservation and farming techniques they have learned, and be potential agents for the dissemination of these techniques among the Gourma population.
The schools’ project sites also serve as demonstration sites to farmers in the surrounding areas, with the possibility of impacting their farming practices.
