Michel, Tomkoumo and Vicky

Michel Youma is president of the Association of People with Disabilities in Gourma, a remote community in the east of Burkina Faso. An inspiration to the community around him, he battled the disabling effects of polio by crawling almost four miles to school as a child. He has since helped transform the association into a thriving hub of activity.

“We are reaching out to as many disabled people as possible in the community,” he says. “This is about creating prospect for people with disabilities and making them feel part of society.”

As well as providing classes in Braille, sign language and literacy to people with disabilities, the association is involved in a range of income-generating activities to help raise the community’s standard of living. These include making furniture, artisan handcraft and metal work. A proportion of the group’s income goes back into partner organisations to help them improve services to their members.

Tomkoumo Solange, a 48-year-old mother of five, cannot see. She is completely dependent on her daughter, Oubra, a quiet girl who’s incredibly small for her age, to gather food or water each day. They walk hand in hand across the dusty plains and stifling heat in Bougi, a remote settlement in the east of Burkina Faso,  in search of wood. With her mother’s thin frame and stick-like legs, their progress is painfully slow through the dry scrub.

“It is difficult for people like me,” she says. “People with disabilities are treated badly. They are called names or discriminated against. I stay in the house most of the time, when I can. Neighbours help me, but you need to collect food to survive.”

Her daughter is unlikely to ever attend school, as she helps to guide her mother every day. The summer months are the toughest, she says, when food supplies run low and the boiling Saharan winds send temperatures soaring towards 50 degrees Celsius. Work has just started to try empower people like her.

Vicky Harris, a development worker with International Service Ireland, is helping to organise the local group of disabled people in Bougi to lobby the government and start income-generating projects. It has already secured a plot of land on which it plans to start a large chicken farm. By selling the animals on after a few months, it plans to make a enough money at the market to improve their living standards and make then less dependant on hand-outs or charity

Vicky Harris, 25, is based in Gourma, a remote community in the east of Burkina Faso, where she is working to help build up the capacity of local disabled people’s organiations. “These are people who have been completely disregarded,” says Harris, who previously worked with a homeless agency in Dublin.

“What we’re doing is creating the foundations of a project to try to change that… It’s inspirational to see the confidence building up in people when they get together.”

Most of her work is with the Association of People with Disabilities in Gourma, which provides support to people with disabilities in the community through human rights and skills training. As well as providing classes in sign language, Braille and literacy, it has started a number of income-generating to help improve the standard of living for local disabled people. These activities include making furniture, handcraft and metal work.

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