Plan Benin Annual Progress Report 2010

BENIN

SUMMARY REPORT

ALGERIA

2010

Caring for a school garden in the Atacora

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GOOD REASONS

OUR PRIORITIES

why Plan works in Benin

in Benin

• One child in eight dies before reaching the age of five • More than half the population lives on less than US$1 a day

• Helping to make families more financially secure so they can adequately feed their children

• Child rights abuses such as child trafficking, child labour and forced marriage are common

• Working to prevent and cure major child-killing illnesses, and dealing with HIV/AIDS • Helping communities to get clean water, decent sanitation and better roads

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• Supporting better education for children, at primary and secondary school Niger

• Preventing child abuse and promoting child protection and children’s participation in decision making • Reducing the future impact of natural disasters and responding when they happen

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Children are served lunch at a school in Kouwetakouagou

BURKINA FASO

Fon and Yoruba are also widely spoken.

Climate: Benin’s climate is hot COTE D'IVOIRE and humid. Annual rainfall in the coastal area averages 36cm – not particularly high for coastal West Africa. Benin has two rainy and two dry seasons.

The principal rainy season is from April to late July, with a shorter, less intense rainy

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period from late September to November. The main dry season is from December to April, with a short cooler dry season from late July to early September.

Economy: The economy of Benin remains underdeveloped and dependent on subsistence agriculture, cotton production, and regional trade.

Atacora

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Capital: Porto-Novo Population: 8.7 million Languages: French (official).

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‘Households contribute in kind and the women organise themselves to cook and serve the children meals at midday’

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Benin Facts Black Volta

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A YEAR IN

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GHANA TOGO

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Porto-Novo

BENIN Country Office Program Units

BENIN

Focus on:

financial security for families Many poor families in Benin rely on subsistence farming. The irregular income from any surplus produce is a major problem.

Plan aims to help families become more financially secure and feed their children better. We promote income-generating activities for women, help farmers to

diversify and intensify their production and to store crops more effectively. We help families to find markets for their products and support job skills training for teenagers.

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Community members in a Child Protection training session

The Bigger Picture

rock and a hard place

Many families in Benin struggle to feed their families, but in the village of Kouwetakouagou, it is especially hard.

Ninety per cent of the village’s population lives below the poverty line. As in many households in rural Benin, young people have left the community in search of work in Nigeria and in many cases children are left in the care of their grandparents.

One notable member of the older generation is Jean Michel, a 60-year-old retired school teacher who established the Kouwetakouagou Primary School in 2000. He knows how hard it is for children to study on an empty stomach and that hunger is one of the factors that contributes to children dropping out of school.

This year Jean Michel became involved with a Plan-backed program to provide children in poor communities with at least one decent meal a day. Giving the children food at school both relieves their parents of the burden of providing that meal and provides kids with the energy to concentrate on their studies.

Importantly, the initiative galvanises the community to produce and cook the food themselves. Jean Michel volunteers his time for the feeding program. ‘Households contribute in kind and the women organise themselves to cook and serve the children at midday.’

Community organisation Plan provided training, encouragement and cooking equipment for the communities of 30 primary schools. In turn, the communities provided crops, meat and eggs and cooked the food for the schools. At the moment Kouwetakouagou Primary School has a vegetable garden, a farm and a poultry operation for raising guinea fowl.

The local people are very involved. They grow crops and raise poultry to make contributions in kind for school meals – not only for the immediate period but also to stock up for the future. They designate volunteers among the mothers of the school to cook lunch and serve the children.

Produced for Benin by Plan International Australia.

Something to be proud of There has been a dramatic effect on school attendance. The village has found that since the children started having lunch in school, there have been neither late arrivals nor absentees in the afternoon. It also gives the school children a welcome opportunity to socialise with each other in the middle of the day. ‘This year, I have not registered any drop-out contrary to previous years when the lowest drop-out rate was ten per cent,’ says Jean Michel. ‘It’s like the school feeding project came with a magic wand to solve our problems, bring better health for our children and improve the school results as well as open the eyes of parents to their children’s right to hearty and balanced meals.’

Kouwetakouagou is one of a number of schools in a pilot project. A total of 4257 children in Benin received lunch at school last year as part of the program.

Plan is working with children, families and communities to find sustainable solutions to the challenges in Benin. We have only given you a small insight into Plan’s work in Benin with this report but over the past year we also: • Trained 317 health workers and 375 community volunteers on malaria and dealing with respiratory infections • Helped to build 89 boreholes and 76 school toilets – vital for clean water and good sanitation • Increased the number of village savings and loans associations from 3073 to 12,775, enabling more women to start and develop small businesses Your support as a sponsor is crucial to achieving these results. With the resources provided by sponsors, Plan expertise and the collaboration of communities and local partners we are making a big difference to the lives of people in Benin.

Thank you for your involvement!

To learn more about Plan’s work in Benin visit plan.org.au/ourwork/westafrica/benin

‘This year, I have not registered any drop-out, contrary to previous years when the lowest drop-out rate was ten per cent’