Our Work

Recent achievements: Update on World Vision's work in Burundi, January 2017 Brief history of WV in the country: WV began operations in Burundi in 1963 with funds for a replacement doctor at a leprosy colony/hospital. During 1973 and 74, funds for a small emergency relief ministry were channeled through TEAR Fund. And later in the 1970's, World Vision supported two projects, which provided medicines to area clinics, a childcare project operated by the Free Methodist Church, and funds to build a small water-powered gristmill in collaboration with the “Eglise Protestante Episcopale du Burundi.” During the period of 1980 to 1990, the ministry in Burundi was being managed out of the Africa Relief Office in Nairobi, Kenya, and was locally administered by a number of different partner agencies. It focused on non-sponsorship community development projects that began with two in 1980, and increased to 12 in 1984. Operations were stopped towards the end of the 1980s but restarted in 1993, due to the acute humanitarian needs created by the civil unrest. The World Vision Burundi national office was opened in the country’s capital of Bujumbura in 1995 with significant emergency response projects. Until the end of 2001, World Vision Burundi had projects scattered in six provinces with emergency assistance as a prime focus. World Vision Burundi is currently intervening in 18 Area Development Programmes (ADPs) in 6 provinces (Muramvya, Gitega, Karusi, Muyinga, Cankuzo, and Rutana) where we implement long-term community development. World Vision also intervenes in Mwaro province centre west of the country with a child and mother health project, through safe reproductive health. Soon, a new nutrition project will begin in the provinces of Makamba and Rutana, south east of Burundi under the funding of the World Bank. Our long-term community development projects aim at: food production and household incomes in poor families; access clean water and sanitation facilities; access quality and affordable primary health care services and; send their children to schools that provide appropriate and quality education programs. To date, World Vision Burundi serves more than 1,000, 000 children from partner communities in 18 Area Development Programmes (ADPs) in six provinces. Recent achievements: Health sector In FY-16, an outbreak of malaria compelled us to quickly scale up the Integrated Community Case Management iccm project, to help rescue populations, mainly children at risk of death in many areas of our intervention, focus being put on malaria management. The ICCM project fights against three main killers of under five children in Burundi. Those include, Malaria, Diarrhea and Pneumonia. In this regard, Community health workers (CHWs) were trained and Iccm revealed itself to be an effective tool to address these three diseases since they are treated at community level allowing children to access health care in due time. Besides ICCM, World Vision in partnership with the Global Fund distributed mosquito nets to help fight the high malaria prevalence in many areas of our interventions. Health education In FY 16, WVB focused on building the capacity of health community mobilisers and equipping them with necessary toolkits and providing various training sessions targeting health staff and community members. World Vision also supported health districts in our areas of interventions to roll out Community Led and Total sanitation (CLTS) approach. This approach is contributing to the reduction of diarrhoea diseases and avoid open defecation. Hence, 25, 614 community members were sensitized on health care seeking behaviour at community level and 1,555 community health workers (CHWs) were trained on how to diagnose and treat pneumonia, diarrhea and malaria according to the existing national policy. Treatment of the poor/Economic development Levels of hunger are high, and the situation is worsened by climate change and bad weather whereby crops are destroyed by heavy rains or hails, drought and rainstorms. The analysis of the available food security and nutrition data in terms of child under nutrition and child mortality places the country among the hungriest places in the World, and early this year, the Burundi government has already acknowledged that the change in climate would affect a good number of its population. World Vision is supporting vulnerable people by providing improved seeds and fertilizers. For the time being, we have APs (Area programmes) that are implementing food security and livelihoods projects and linking farmers to markets. Vulnerable community members are supported to be able to save and access credits and loans through Village and savings loans associations (VSLAs). Locally having access to loans enables them to respond to daily needs at the household level and be able to initiate off-farm income generating activities and be able to resist against shocks. Last year, more than 1600 associations have been set in place with a capital of over $500,000. Through the only VSLA approach, World Vision is contributing to the well-being of around 100,000 children. Education Education remains Burundi’s Government core focus of its long-term development vision and since 2013, it allocates 17.2% of its annual budget to this sector. To achieve this goal, the government still faces challenges related especially to congestion of schools, insufficient school materials, repetition rates and persistence of double-shift classrooms despite the big effort deployed by the government in classrooms construction. World Vision is supporting to promote quality education through teachers’ training, mobilization of communities and construction of infrastructures. Through the Literacy Boost project, an innovative approach that is helping children to learn how to read and write at community level, children are improving their writing and reading skills at an early age. Results show that children that benefit from these reading camps perform well in classes than those who did not. 24, 720 reading materials were developed or bought to promote community reading activities. World Vision also helped 401 adolescents in successfully complete vocational training. Vocational training is helping to create off-farm income generating projects to find alternatives to land contraction. Recent emergencies: Malaria outbreak was categorized in CAT 3. Since early 2016, statistics from the Burundi Ministry of Health projected numbers of malaria cases to reach nine million (more than 80 per cent of the Burundi population) if nothing was done. In front of that unprecedented increase of malaria incidence, World Vision Burundi decided to respond to it with key interventions in highly affected areas (Karusi, Muramvya, Rutana and Cankuzo) utilizing internal funding from Area Development Programs (ADPs) allocations. A number of lifesaving interventions were launched including Indoor Residual Spraying (IRS), distribution of mosquito nets, Case management focusing on diagnosis and treatment of patients with malaria while promoting and implementing Integrated Community Case Management (ICCM) for children 2-59 month; Intermittent Preventive Treatment of malaria in Pregnant women (IPTP); promoting proper sanitation around homes and clearing mosquito multiplication sites; Strengthening integration with other sectors and intervention within health sector and promoting positive healthy behavior for early diagnosis and treatment. 58,000 mosquito nets were procured and distributed to the most vulnerable families. Burundi is also prone to natural disasters such as those prompted by climate change. To mitigate the risks, World Vision Burundi initiated a hotline project (109) that currently gathers other different stakeholders, including HCR, WFP, OIM, OCHA and Caritas. Various Humanitarian needs were reported with the help of this accountability hotline. Needs were mostly related to shelter, protection, child abuse, food security and Health as well as increased vulnerabilities caused by the recent el nino phenomenon and the current social turmoil. 240 calls were received and service seekers were connected to service providers among the stakeholders. Programmes Aspiration, Programme, Goal -Enjoy Good Health, 38,604 children were screened for malnutrition in our different areas of work, and 6,118 boys and girls recovered from malnutrition after they were rehabilitated in FARN (foyer d’apprentissage et de rehabilitation nutritionnelle). In the 2016, World Vision supported 3,341 mothers to improve infant and young child feeding practices and 182 FARN sites were equipped with cooking utensils, reporting and monitoring materials to ease and quicken rehabilitation in those sites. -Are educated for life, to help vulnerable communities to find other sources of income because of land contraction; World Vision has trained 216 teachers were trained on entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship is a subject that the Government of Burundi has recently introduced in schools to help fight against the increasing unemployment. 401 youth were supported by World Vision to attend and complete successfully vocational trainings. Experience love of God and neighbours, during the celebration of Christmas, WVB partnered with local religious leaders to preach to children. 36,015 children were nurtured spiritually during Sunday schools by 317 Sunday school teachers trained by World Vision. -Are cared for and participating, to help bring about, social transformation by addressing various social norms, practices and attitudes that inhibit individuals including children. World Vision is helping in strengthening of national structures and policies that promote child protection. 1,020 community based child protection committee members were trained on child rights and reporting mechanisms. Training was provided to 111 partners on citizen voice and action (CVA) approach after that 105 citizen voice and action (CVA) committees were set in place to make sure children are protected. Sponsorship. Around 50,000 children are registered in sponsorship programme among whom 36,000 are sponsored. Number of staff members: Permanent International staff - 6 National permanent staff – 192 Temporal National staff-0 Interns-24 Total full time - 198 Female - 48 Male – 150 Recent SO media activity/content: [N/A] Contacts: Marthe Mbengue, National Director Tel 257 22 244 316; Mobile: 257 71539318 Achel BAYISENGE, Communications, Tel 25722215669; Mobile 257 79344770