Written By Mollie Cohen
‘Twas a rollercoaster of a week here at
APIL, there have been ups and there have been downs. It has been a very weird
atmosphere in the office, our time is nearly over at APIL and everyone will be
returning home very soon… and sadly this will be the last blog instalment from
Cohort #1, at APIL.
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| Mary excited to get her new APIL t-shirt |
As a parting gift from APIL, on Monday all
the volunteers and team leaders were given some swaggy APIL merchandise. This
included; polo tops, key-rings and bracelets. Some would say the new polo’s
came at the perfect time – or just
Mary, because she had dribbled some of her lunch down her top.
On Tuesday we bid goodbye to our dear
Coordinator at a lunch that he put on for us. Stomachs were rumbling, and
hunger was rampant, when at around 2pm we were beckoned to the conference room
where the food awaited us. Us volunteers ran as fast as our legs would allow,
with Khader and Dramane screaming “FOOD
IS LIFE” dramatically as they stumbled into the buffet, and rice went
flying across the room.*
The lunch itself was delicious, we gorged on rice, fish, salad, and eggs (YUM).
Following the feast, we had speeches from Barry, Mr. Matthews, and the
Coordinator himself. The Coordinator essentially gave us all the title of
‘ambassadors’ and asked us to continue to interact with APIL, spread the word
of all they do, and try to help to gain support for them across the world.
After the speeches we all piled outside and for a photo shoot with the staff.
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| Leaving lunch |
We held our final group reflection this
week on ‘Peace and Conflict’, and considered questions like; how does war
affect communities and how can conflict be solved. It was a really interesting
discussion that provoked us into considering how we will be involved in our
communities in the future, and how important our action at home really is.
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| Band plays a song about donkeys at the conference |
Wednesday was the biggest event of the
week, it was the Donkey Conference. It
was a launch event for the Brooke Donkey Project, which aims to improve the
lives of working horses, donkeys and mules across Africa, Asia, Latin America
and the Middle East. Brooke is now partnering with APIL to reach the people of
Burkina Faso and their donkeys. In just the Plateau-Central region alone 67% of
families own at least one donkey – therefore APIL has a huge opportunity to make
a difference for thousands of animals lives. The conference itself was really
interesting, and there was even some half-time entertainment from a band who
sang a jazzy song they wrote about donkeys. It sounds bizarre but it was
surprisingly really good.  |
| Augustin and Mary training 10 local women on reforestation |
Another 3 hours were ticked off from our
giant checklist in our office on Thursday, as we held a reforestation training
session for 10 APIL women. The day started fairly slowly as there was a lot of
information to process, but we learnt that allowing the participants time to do
group work and chat to each other really helped to pick up the mood of the
room. Following our training session we had a visit from Jean-Pascal and Oumar
for our final team check in.
We will all be heading back to Ouagadougou
on Thursday morning, and will only be in the office on Monday to finish off any
documents and forms before our departure. We’ve had a really great experience
here at APIL and getting the chance to work with such a diverse, but
interesting group of people has been so rewarding to everyone.
Good luck to the next cohort… and goodbye from us!!!
Peace out homies x
*Note: some of the information written is
not 100% accurate.
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