These holidays... give a gift of hope
With a real project gift from Plan you are giving hope to the children and families whose lives are being threatened in communities throughout East Africa.
Find out moreKate Leeming visits Plan-supported school in Burkina Faso
22-December-2009
Kate Leeming on the road to Timbuktu
After two months toiling along the roads of West Africa, adventure cyclist Kate Leeming and her Breaking the Cycle crew have made it to Burkina Faso where they are this week visiting a school supported by Plan International as part of the BRIGHT education project.
Kate is writing regular diary entries and uploading photos to her Breaking the Cycle website, and will soon have entries reflecting on her first visit to a Plan-supported project. You can read about Kate’s journey so far on her diary page.
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 will be visiting a school in the Sanmatenga province to find out just how much of an impact the program is having for the children, and particularly girls, of Burkina Faso. You can find out more about the BRIGHT program on the Plan website while you wait for Kate to write her diary entry.
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 and Niger.
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.