Burkina Faso

ICDP started a training programme together with Save the Children in 2017.

The main objective of this initiative was to offer ICDP training to eighteen members of Save the Children staff and some of their partner institutions. The training was planned to take place over several months and to lead to their certification as ICDP Facilitators in 2018.

The long term vision is to insert the ICDP programme as part of Save the Children’s own work, inside their Parenting Package Project.

In Ouagadougou, the capital city of Burkina Faso, the first ICDP training module was implemented in November 2017. A total of twenty hours were used to cover the ICDP programme agenda.

The eighteen participants were directly involved in three field projects in three different provinces. Most of the participants were men – there were three women and fifteen men. The ICDP trainer, Pedro Mendes, felt that this could help mobilise more men in the target communities, by involving them actively in the caring and education of children. He felt that this was an issue that merited exploring.

“The atmosphere during the sessions was very relaxed and there was a good participation from the attendants who expressed their views and opinions and were ready to give pertinent examples from their field experience. Instructions were given for their ICDP field tasks. The venue was rather agreeable and there was close sharing during meals. The planned field visit did not take place for lack of time and opportunity; however, it will take place during the next workshop.” – Pedro Mendes.

The trainee facilitators completed their training in 2018. However, a number of the trained facilitators could not continue with the ICDP implementation for various reasons, although some did go on to apply ICDP in 2019.

It was therefore felt best to train a new group as facilitators and at the same time to continue the training of the previously established facilitators to become trainers. The first training workshop for the new group was conducted in January 2020, by Nicoletta Armstrong.