Burkina Faso is an ethnically integrated secular state in sub-Sahara West Africa that is slightly larger than Colorado (map). Eighty percent of Burkina Faso’s 14 million inhabitants live in rural communities and most are subsistence farmers. While it is landlocked with limited natural resources and rainfall, this parliamentary republic has achieved economic growth, made advances in social welfare, and, as noted in a well-known travel guide, has “managed to fashion a beautiful and culturally sophisticated country out of the little resources it has.”

The SUJARO Direct Action Project seeks to make a difference in the lives of people in Burkina Faso by helping to lift many of them out of extreme poverty. Direct Action projects are being undertaken in the following five interconnected areas to address existing challenges and take advantage of positive trends:
     • Meeting Daily Needs: Clothing, Necessities and Food Security
     • Water Development: Access and Management
     • Direct Health Care Initiatives
     • Education Development: Helping Children Attend and Stay in School
     • Microfinance and Village Banking

The project’s activities in these areas are designed to address temporary emergencies while getting at root, structural causes. People in Burkina Faso are extremely vulnerable due to both immediate and structural factors: emergency conditions exist in the long term, with structural factors contributing to these emergencies. It thus is important for poverty-alleviating activities to address and bridge emergency and longer-term, development responses.

The project will focus on the five areas noted above in ways that respect their myriad and deep interconnections. For instance, people who drink clean water are less likely to get sick, are better able to work, and are more likely to send their children to school. People with loans from a village bank are more likely to increase their income, are better able to pay for medicine and have better nutrition so are less likely to get sick, and are more likely to send their children to school. And adequately clothed people are less likely to be stricken by preventable diseases, like meningitis, and thus able to work and go to school.

YOUR CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE SUJARO DIRECT ACTION PROJECT WILL HELP PEOPLE TAKE THE FIRST STEPS OUT OF EXTREME POVERTY. YOU CAN MAKE THE DIFFERENCE!

Our work would be incomplete without acknowledging the resilience, courage and inventiveness of the people of Burkina Faso. While these characteristics will help them take the first step on the ladder out of extreme poverty, they need a hand—they need your help. The challenges facing many Burkinabe and others who live in extreme poverty can be met, Jeffrey Sachs underscores in The End of Poverty, with “known, proven, reliable and appropriate technologies and interventions”—if we all make appropriate and timely commitments and choices.

Importantly, our actions are direct and avoid the slightest semblance of bureaucracy. Every dollar donated will go directly towards the project. Neither I nor any of the individuals working on the project will be paid. All flights, container shipping, food transport, storage, and other infrastructure will be paid out of my pocket. Our goal is complete transparency, with all distribution regularly videotaped, monitored and reported. The development of a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization is underway, and will be completed within the next few months. Donations can be given through our website, by email (donations@sujaro.com), and by telephone at (415) 362-6601.

Please contribute in any way you can.

Andrew J. Berz
Owner
October, 2007

YES, I want to contribute to the SUJARO Anti-Poverty Direct Action Project. Here is my donation (click on the amount of your choice). A report which details the Project's efforts and the transparent expenditure of all contributions will be provided to all donors.