The club recently made a donation of £250 to locally based overseas development charity Transform Burkina (www.transformburkina.org.uk)

Kevin Lawrence, the charity’s Chief Executive, who came to speak at a recent meeting, said:

Thank you so much for your welcome to the Club, your letter and the wonderful news of the donation of £250. 

We will use this, as requested, in our programme to offer small loans to individuals in Burkina Faso, helping them to start a business and become more self-reliant.

Typical of those that Transform Burkina aims to support is Isaac Gumbiou, a small scale farmer in Ratyiri, a village in the north west of Burkina Faso.  A small loan to buy chicks, feed etc. has allowed him to start a chicken rearing business.

There is a good market for chickens in the nearest town and the profits from their sale has allowed Isaac to repay his loan and continue to expand his business.  The family also now have some extra income which they can use to pay for items like school uniforms and books for the children or medical costs.

In Burkina Faso, 80% of the population rely on small scale farms to survive and the ‘micro credit’ programme run by Transform Burkina aims to offer many more farmers the chance to start a business and transform their future with small loans such as the one from which Isaac benefitted.

For more information about the project, please contact Transform Burkina on info@transformburkina.org.uk