Butoke Works in Four Principal Areas
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Click here for access to all Butoke Reports and
Updates, by date.
Food Security and Nutrition |
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Food security has
been Butoke’s first and most important area of intervention to date. Butoke’s
team of agricultural workers established their reputation in 2004, as a
result of successful work in four locations. In the summer of
2005, Butoke secured funding to pursue this work, just in time for the Sept.
2005 planting season. As a result of this work, Butoke was able to support
185 associations of small farmers and approximately 700 farmers working
individual family plots during the months of August to October of this year.
These farmers have received basic tools and seeds (hoes, machetes), in order
to help them become reestablished, or in some cases to become established for
the first time, in agricultural activities. Click here for more information on our projects and
activities in this area. [Top] |
This widow walked 60 km (40 miles) seeking seeds from Butoke . |
Health
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Butoke’s interventions in the health sector aim to address the needs of the most deprived. These include dispossessed people in need of emergency medical services, the severely malnourished, and the disabled. Many emergencies are turned away from hospitals for lack of ability to pay. Butoke provides an advocate who assists hospital patients get access to needed health care. Malnutrition is widespread, since most people eat only one meal a day, and the food is often low in essential nutrients. Malnutrition primarily affects children, widows, pregnant mothers, handicapped people and older women. Butoke identifies people who are malnourished and provides both food and nutritional counselling. Butoke’s food security and nutrition program provides a longer-term approach. In a situation where survival is often uncertain anyway, disabilities further impair an individual’s chances. Disabled people are stigmatized because they are considered to be “unlucky.” Existing services provide neither social rehabilitation nor pastoral care. Butoke provides all of these. Click here for more information on our projects and
activities in this area. [Top] |
This widowed mother and her child are both severely malnourished. |
Legal and Human Rights |
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Butoke’s human rights program focuses on two of the most marginalized groups in society in the region: prisoners and widows. Butoke’s lawyers have established that
one third of the prisoners in Death rates among men are high, due to war, accidents, violence, alcohol and drug abuse. As a result, 30% of adult women are widows. Widows are regarded as “witches,” blamed for the death of their husbands and so disinherited. Many become prostitutes. Butoke’s food security and nutrition program (see above) helps these women to secure a sustainable way of feeding themselves and their families. Butoke offers support in other ways. It plans to initiate a legal project in 2005, focusing on the legal rights of widows. [Top] |
Prisoners in courtyard. Butoke’s lawyers
have established that one third of prisoners have not been accused of any
crime. Since Dec. 2004, Butoke’s lawyers have secured the release of 15 of
the 150 inmates in |
Education |
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Butoke provides support for school fees and notebooks and pens, without which children cannot attend private or government schools. We have supported 278 children in this way to date, mostly orphaned or abandoned children. We have also organized special summer courses for village children in French, English, and mathematics. In the summer of 2004, 128 students participated in this educational enrichment. [Top] |
Handing out notebooks to sponsored students. |
