Kate Leeming inspired by Burkina Faso school visit

Kate Leeming with a class of students in Burkina Faso

While most people in Australia were preparing for the Christmas holiday break, adventure cyclist Kate Leeming was taking time out from her epic bicycle journey across Africa to visit schools in Burkina Faso that are supported by Plan International.

During her visit, Kate met with community members, teachers, students and Plan field workers in areas where Plan is participating in the BRIGHT education project.

“This visit has given me much more insight into how the whole community is affected by the new school,” Kate said in her latest diary entry. “The community is obviously very poor, but the spirit is so positive and their ideas constructive. I think the community is inspired by the progress made since 2006.”

Kate is writing regular diary entries and uploading photos to her Breaking the Cycle website throughout her journey across Africa, and you can now read the latest entry about her visit to the Plan-supported communities and see photographs.

BRIGHT stands for Burkinabè Response to Improve Girls’ Chances To succeed, a project designed to help increase the number of girls attending school and getting the most they can out of the opportunity. Ensuring that girls get adequate education is one of the keys to breaking the ongoing cycles of poverty in countries such as Burkina Faso, a point highlighted by Plan’s Because I am a Girl reports and campaign.

Kate’s next visit to a Plan International project will be in Cameroon in late February/early March. You can keep following her journey on the Breaking the Cycle website, and there will be updates on the Plan website when she gets closer to Cameroon.

Kate set off from Dakar in Senegal in mid-October, and has since ridden thousands of gruelling kilometres through Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Burkina Faso.

The Breaking the Cycle project will see Kate riding more than 20,000km across Africa, finishing in Somalia in east Africa sometime in July or August 2010, as she seeks to learn more about the causes of extreme poverty and organisations that are working to make a difference.

Your school can also get involved with the accompanying education program supported by the Victorian Department of Education. Find out more about the schools program.

Read more about Kate Leeming’s bicycle adventure across Africa and how Plan is supporting her.