Sunday June 9th - Arrive Burundi

Arrive Burundi

You fly into Bujumbura by crossing some mountains then a very sudden and near perfect plain appears. Very spectacular. The airport sits on the northern edge of capital.

I was pretty tired after the trip having not been able to sleep but that aside, even though it was a modest 21 c at 9 in the morning, you are immediately hit by the humidity of this lovely little green country. I was picked up by Chrysanthe Ndayizeye.

Chrysanthe is from the Action Aid Head Office in Bujumbura. He kindly dropped me off at the hotel via a quick drive down to the lake to show me some of the sites and a bit more of the town.

Josias (whos name I have been pronouncing wrongly all this time - should be Joss-ee-as) met me at the hotel and this is where the trip really begins. Josias Ogden has been with ActionAid for 4 years, 2 of which he has held the responsibility of Sponsorship Manager.

Visit 1 - The University of Burundi.

The university is situated on the top of a hill overlooking Bujumbura.

It holds approximately 6 thousand students who receive a place by passing there National Exams. Their tuition fee is entirely paid for by the government, something the UK could learn a thing or two about. A system where you have to work and study hard for your university placement sounds extremely sensible to me. Thing is - this only applies to those who are in the education system. The extremely poor can't get anywhere near these facilities and that's what we are off to learn a bit more about on Tuesday by heading east to the Ruyigi province.

A view of Bujumbura from the University

The Sponsorship Programme

The way that ActionAid and in fact the Burundi government operate the sponsorship programme begins with the Burundi government itself using its own research, stats and analysis to point ActionAid towards the areas of concern. ActionAid then moves into the area and starts off by arranging meetings with the community leaders as well as othe local organisations, to gain a local opinion on what they actually need.

In brief, this is where the project is established, for example; in the scenario they are building a school, ActionAid begin training the community to run and take responsibility for the project themselves. Show's them how to source builders etc. and whatever is needed to fulfil the project.

 It's clever. The community gets to implement its own project with funds supplied by ActionAid and Actionaid empowers the community to help themselves. The child sponsorship comes in to fund project by sponsoring the children using the school. ActionAid refers to sponsored children as ambassadors, which I quite like. I'm sure this section is going to get edited and grow quite a bit as I learn more about the whole thing during my visit.