Community Catalysts for Change
How a Burkina Faso village transformed the health of its community
For people living in Soaga, a rural village in the Centre-Nord region of Burkina Faso, the nearest health center may have only been 4 miles away in a neighboring village — but the journey was treacherous.
Most villagers would travel by bike or motorcycle — even during an emergency, since there are no local ambulances. And during the rainy season, flooding causes roads to become impassable.
After several women gave birth on the roadside and a woman and her unborn child died from complications due to the inability to reach Koutoumtenga’s clinic in time, Soaga community members pooled funds to build a health facility in their village.
In 2019, Soaga villagers finished construction and officially opened the health facility. Yet this barely scratched the surface of the community’s boundless capabilities. In 2022, Soaga’s district health manager reached out to USAID for help with improving health outcomes in the village.
Through the project PRÉPAration pour la RÉsilience au BURKINA (PREPARE-BURKINA), USAID and implementing partner Pathfinder help marginalized and vulnerable communities build resilience to shocks and natural disasters while improving access to health care. For example, as extreme weather such as flooding became increasingly common in Burkina Faso due to climate change, it was more difficult for people in Soaga to travel to the neighboring health facility.
The project also strengthens the delivery of quality family planning; reproductive health; maternal, newborn, and child health; nutrition; and water, hygiene, and sanitation services in three regions of Burkina Faso (Centre Nord, Sahel, and Est).
USAID helped Soaga use the “community score card” approach to bring residents together to create a plan to improve the community’s health.
This approach convened health workers, community members, and leaders to increase the community’s accountability for their own healthy behaviors and the quality of healthcare delivery.
With input from all of Soaga’s community, they were able to identify the biggest health needs of the community, what barriers exist to seeking care, and local solutions for addressing them.
USAID then worked with community members to develop an action plan to address the community’s health issues, such as a shortage of beds in the waiting room for women in labor, a lack of supplies, limited knowledge among youth about family planning, and training needed for health workers.
The village chief convened general assemblies with the wider community, and a community representative presented the action plan and encouraged the community to implement it. USAID then helped the village create and appoint a community-led committee to oversee its implementation.
Locally-led solutions to community health issues are essential to sustainably overcoming challenges that impede access to health services.
The community score card approach led to the community building a consultation room to weigh infants, vaccinate them, and monitor their nutrition; introducing cleaning days in the surrounding areas of the market to prevent the spread of disease; and ensuring soap is available at the health center to promote good hygiene and prevent infections.
The village’s advocacy efforts also garnered financial support from the Ministry of Health to complete the building of a medicine dispensary and two housing units for health staff stationed at the facility.
Adama Sawadogo, Soaga’s community mobilizer, was instrumental in fundraising and constructing Soaga’s health facility.
“This approach has had a positive impact on the health and life of the community,” Adama said, noting that it should be extended to other communities.
USAID is now supporting four additional communities in the Centre-Nord region of Burkina Faso to use the score card approach and implement their action plans.
Soaga is a role model to other communities in taking charge of their well-being:
“We, the inhabitants of the village of Soaga, are united, and the others have seen the effect this has had.
And when we go to the town hall or the prefecture with a problem, people say, ‘We must be like the people of Soaga.’
We can see that our action in the village is changing attitudes and saving lives.” — Adama
