BARKA Burkina Consortium
On Pangea Day, May 10th, 2008, The BARKA Foundation announced plans to develop the BARKA Burkina Consortium, a collective effort to create a new model for achieving Millennium Development Goals in Burkina Faso and co-creating a culture of peace. On September 21st, the 27th International Day of Peace, the Consortium was offically unveiled.
For Release September 19th, 2008
BARKA Burkina Consortium Aims to Achieve MDGs in Burkina Faso
Partners unveiled on Peace Day; cites clean water as its first initiative
Begins with village “micro-model” based on reciprocity with indigenous peoples
1st Annual Peace, Water & Wisdom Concert planned for 2009 in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso
The BARKA Foundation (http://www.barkafoundation.org) joins hands with Pathways To Peace, The Gandhi Tour, ZZYX Entertainment, Earth Day Network’s Global Water Network, Aqua Dynamic Solutions, Monument Mountain Regional High School, Railroad Street Youth Project, Greenagers, Center for Peace Through Culture, The Colonial Theatre, Healing Winds, Women With Wings, and Future Now to create the BARKA Burkina Consortium, a 7-year collective effort to unite strengths in a cross-cutting, integral approach to achieving the UN’s Millennium Development Goals in Burkina Faso, West Africa by the target date of 2015 and to develop a model that can be replicated.
The concept of the Consortium was created in large part through the cooperation and support of the Culture of Peace Initiative (CPI), a worldwide community of peacebuilding organizations which was granted Peace Messenger Initiative status by the UN Secretary General in 1989. The annual highlight of this Initiative is the International Day of Peace on September 21st. Michael Johnson, the UN Representative for Pathways To Peace which serves as CPI’s International Secretariat, was instrumental in inspiring the idea of a consortium to achieve MDGs in Burkina and to create a template that can be replicated anywhere in the world. The BARKA Foundation’s membership within CPI enabled UN support and helped BARKA forge relations with 11 UN agencies in 6 months. “We see the Consortium as a model for best practices within CPI as it relates to peacebuilding through the achievement of MDGs. By addressing economic violence, the procurement of basic survival needs and sensitivity toward indigenous peoples, the creation of a culture of peace becomes possible and replicable”, says Michael Johnson.
The Consortium is working in concert with the United Nations and in cooperation with the Burkina Faso government:
“We welcome this endeavor to improve the living conditions of Burkinabe and also to share Burkina’s gifts with other parts of the world. The Consortium is an innovative model leading the way toward a new form of cooperative development and humanitarian assistance. The Burkina Faso government looks forward to working with the Consortium and its partners.”
-His Excellency Ernest Paramanga Yonli, Ambassador, Burkina Faso Embassy to the United States
"The BARKA Burkina Consortium has the support of the Burkina Faso Permanent Mission to the United Nations.”
-His Excellency Michel Kafando, Ambassador, UN Permanent Mission of Burkina Faso
"This initiative resonates strongly with the work of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. The Permanent Forum has repeatedly called for the full and effective participation of indigenous peoples in designing, implementing and monitoring MDG related programs and projects. Indigenous peoples are the custodians of some of the most biologically diverse areas of the world. They have an amazing amount of traditional knowledge about their environment which is transferred from one generation to the next, and this knowledge is essential for the success and sustainability of development projects aimed at achieving the Millennium Development Goals."
-Elsa Stamatopoulou, Chief, Secretariat of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues
“The Consortium is searching for a new paradigm of development and achieving MDGs that is grassroots, community-driven, powered by women, integrated with music, art & dance and can join together indigenous as well as modern technology. Technology and enterprise have their place in the developing world, however the preservation of indigenous culture, languages, and human rights must not be sacrificed in the process. We will serve as connective tissue between these two civilizations to bridge understanding and appreciation of each culture’s respective consciousness, gifts and vulnerabilities” says Esu Anahata aka Howard Ross Patlis, Co-Founder of The BARKA Foundation.
“The Burkinabe opened their hearts and their homes to us. We are grateful for the opportunity to join hands, to be of service to one another, to be engaged with the people of Burkina. When I think of 2 billion people living on less than a dollar a day and 1 billion without access to clean water, I ask myself how can this be so in this sophisticated world of modern culture and technology”, says Ina Anahata, Co-Founder of The BARKA Foundation.
The BARKA Foundation’s aspirations are that the Consortium will create more than an innovative approach toward developmental aid. By joining together new technologies and methodologies of the West with the Old Ways that have been held onto by the world’s indigenous peoples it becomes possible to find a new way to adapt to and mitigate the crises the global village is facing. Indigenous life represents an entirely different paradigm from which the West has much to learn. “We’re extending and accepting an invitation. We believe we have medicine for each other. We wish to approach Burkina with humility, respect, gratitude and optimism for co-creating a new way out of poverty and toward a sustainable future for us all”, added Ina & Esu. The BARKA Foundation is dedicated to bringing the indigenous voice to a seat at the table of world discourse on issues of sustainability, social justice, spiritual healing and peace.
It was through BARKA’s discourse with mothers and grandmothers in the bush and urban areas of Burkina Faso that ‘Clean Water for All’ was chosen as the Consortium’s first major initiative. Ina Anahata met with large groups of indigenous women to discuss the Consortium, ask them if they wanted to “join hands” and to determine the first step. The women talked it over and unanimously agreed that clean water was the #1 priority. The Consortium is taking a holistic approach to water that includes sanitation, hygiene, irrigation, sustainable agriculture, women’s empowerment and children’s education. Since women and their daughters walk for miles each day to carry water for their families, water in Africa is a woman’s issue and one that also prevents many girls from attending schools and women from becoming economically and socially empowered.
The Consortium’s work will begin with a micro-model in a single village of eastern Burkina Faso. Over the course of the first 2 years of the project best practices will be established before expanding. The Consortium will involve in-country organizations, local and national government, NGO’s, experts in the field, initiated elders, women’s associations, schools, faith-based and youth groups, researchers and private sector businesses on both sides of the Atlantic to pioneer a collaborative approach for the achievement of MDGs that is specific for each community. Governance, democracy, economics, land and resource management and corporate social responsibility all come into play in the process.
The Consortium is set to establish international relationships for development (MDG #8) between villages in Burkina Faso and 3 initial locales outside of Africa: the Berkshires of western Massachusetts, Bangor, Maine, and Moscow, Russia. This will be accomplished through the direct involvement and participation of Consortium partners in respective areas. Massachusetts State Representative William “Smitty” Pignatelli (D-Lenox) says: “This project is helping not only Burkinabe through the eradication of poverty and achievement of the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals, it is expanding the minds and hearts of everyone here in the Berkshires. The Consortium is providing a vehicle for cultural understanding and appreciation and offering us all concrete opportunities to experience the richness of living in a global village. Barka!"
Recently, with the help of an all-women’s singing group called Women With Wings based in Bangor, Maine, The BARKA Foundation established an initial micro-loan program for sustainable women-owned small businesses. “As we seek the spiritual empowerment of women through music, we will work to support the empowerment of women in Burkina Faso.” Linda Koehler, Director.
Media, entertainment and education are important components of the Consortium’s philosophy. The Peace, Water & Wisdom Concert is being proposed as an annual televised fundraising event in Ouagadougou, the capitol of Burkina Faso to raise funds for the Consortium’s water initiative, to promote peace and to provide a platform for indigenous wisdomkeepers. In addition, through BARKA Networks, the media production arm of The BARKA Foundation, video programming will be developed for television, theatres, online
venues and schools. Documentation of the Consortium’s work will also be used in an effort to reform relevant policies, create educational curricula, and preserve tangible and intangible forms of indigenous cultural heritage through distribution to a worldwide audience.
In an indigenous cosmology of Burkina Faso, the element of water holds the vibration of grief, forgiveness, reconciliation, healing, gratitude and peace. Ultimately the Consortium is a radical response to take personal responsibility for extreme imbalance on the planet. This work is in service to Spirit, our collective Ancestors and the children of the future. Its largest context is peace, self-empowerment and healing– healing of body, mind & spirit, healing between cultures and races, healing of our planet– Pachamama, Gaia, Earth– and the healing of our global village.
The BARKA Burkina Consortium will be announced live in New York City at the World Shift to Peace Festival on September 20th and locally with Consortium partners in downtown Great Barrington, MA on the International Day of Peace.
In one year, on Peace Day 2009, the Consortium will announce its local Burkina partners and is currently developing relations with government ministries, in-country UN agencies and country-based organizations (CBO’s). The BARKA Foundation will establish a headquarters in Fada, Burkina Faso in the coming year.
Barka is an African word of gratitude, blessing and reciprocity. Barka!
Contact:
U.S.: Ina & Esu Anahata at 413-446-7466
Burkina Faso: Ibrahim Coulibaly at 226-70-24-90-33 or 646-945-7276
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ADDENDUM: Subjects, quotes and details about respective partner relationships and initiatives
• PEACE: Pathways To Peace (http://www.pathwaystopeace.org) will continue to foster ties between the Consortium and the United Nations and furthermore support the Consortium in applying its field research toward policy reform on human rights of indigenous peoples and foreign aid.
• Culture of Peace Initiative (http://www.cultureofpeaceinitiative.org) will engender support of its 3000 member organizations for the achievement of MDGs in Burkina as a form of peace in action.
• The Gandhi Tour (http://www.gandhitour.com) will work to amplify and spread the Consortium’s message of peace through music, art and performance.
“Our security and our happiness is linked to the security and happiness of the rest of the world.” Arun Gandhi (grandson of Mohatma Gandhi)
• ENTERTAINMENT/MUSIC: ZZYX Entertainment (http://www.zzyxentertainment.com) will produce the 1st Annual Peace, Water & Wisdom Concert in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso proposed for Peace Day 2009. The concert will raise funds for the Consortium’s 1st initiative to make clean water available to the rural regions of the country and provide a platform for indigenous wisdomkeepers to share their timely messages with the world.
"Music has the power to transcend differences of language, culture, race and economics to bring people together on the common ground that unites us all. ZZYX Entertainment looks forward to working in Burkina to establish an annual Peace Day event to raise awareness and funds for the Consortium's efforts and to add Ouagadougou as a new destination for the world's top musical acts." Rick Garson, Executive Director
• WATER: Global Water Network (http://www.globalwaternetwork.org), a project of Earth Day Network (http://earthday.net) will build on the success of EDN’s Civic Education Program (http://www.earthday.net/greenschools) to create a curriculum program for schools in developed countries to learn about and directly support the creation of water & sanitation facilities at schools
in developing countries. This pilot “schools-to-schools” project will create a ‘best practice’ model designed to expand regionally, nationally and internationally. The program begins with students in
Burkina Faso testing water samples in different regions as a part of World Water Monitoring Day. (http://worldwatermonitoringday.org).
“U.S. students will be able to take what they learn in the classroom about global water and sanitation issues to their local communities to raise awareness and funds that will go toward providing a well, gender-specific latrines, irrigation for a village garden, school supplies and a lunch program to schools in Burkina. The project will also promote inter-cultural understanding and appreciation through curriculum development, written correspondence, and sharing aspects of each other's lives through a video journal and film-based dialogue. Interested parties can “adopt” this water project, make donations directly to it and also follow results and methodology at the project website.” http://globalwaternetwork.org/projects/water-for-schools-burkina-faso.html
Caitlin Werrell, International Director
• Aqua Dynamic Solutions (http://www.aquadynamicsolutions.com) will provide low-tech solutions indigenous to Burkina Faso for purifying and cleansing existing un-potable water sources, and to implement new technologies in water reuse and wastewater treatment based on leading edge scientific research, all addressing water scarcity in the rural regions of Burkina Faso.
“The key here is not to make the same mistakes common to the so-called ‘developed world’, by using elaborate, expensive, wasteful and unsustainable technologies. We have an opportunity in Burkina Faso to start from scratch and do things right. By looking to nature as our guide, we will ensure stewardship of the earth, while achieving our goals of safe drinking water and properly treated sewage. Our success can serve as a model for sustainable development throughout the continent.” John DiTuro, Principal
• EDUCATION: Monument Mountain Regional High School (http://www.bhrsd.org/mmrhs/mmhome/m_index.htm) will initiate a micro-loan program with the school’s Global Village class to support sustainable, women-owned businesses in Burkina Faso.
“Working with the BARKA Foundation on establishing a micro-loan program is a wonderful opportunity for Monument students to become true global citizens. Rather than just talking about the world’s problems, this allows them to be actively involved in solving and aiding those problems”. Kara Staunton-Shron, Global Village class teacher
• YOUTH: Railroad Street Youth Project (http://www.rsyp.org) and Greenagers (www.greenagers.org) will activate and motivate youth on the local and international level to provide platforms for direct involvement and participation in the global issue of achieving MDGs in Burkina Faso.
"What is most interesting to us is actually going to Burkina Faso in order to see what life is like there and to gain a better understanding of how we can work together. We're exploring ways that cultural exchanges can happen and enrich the lives of everyone involved." Faren Worhington, RSYP participant
• ENTERTAINMENT/THEATRE: The Colonial Theatre (http://www.thecolonialtheatre.org) and the city of Pittsfield, MA will work with BARKA and other local organizations and schools to create a West African Cultural Awareness and Appreciation event in Berkshire County to raise funds for the Consortium in conjunction with The Colonial’s October 15th performance of the West African Dance Ensemble.
“The Colonial Theatre is proud to be a founding member of the BARKA Burkina Consortium. Our primary focus is to serve the people of the Berkshires. But we are conscious of the larger leadership role all service organizations play in inspiring people through their actions. As an institution that is dedicated to bringing the world of music and arts to the people who live here, we are excited about building a relationship with the people of Burkina Faso and look forward to the day when the challenges of survival they face can be solved and the richness of their music and dance will become familiar to Berkshire audiences.” David Fleming, Executive Director.
• WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT: Women With Wings,(womenwithwingsbangor@gmail.com) a circle of women who have been singing weekly in Bangor, Maine for 15 years, pledges its support to the BARKA Burkina Consortium by reaching out to people in and around the Bangor Area to expand the awareness of the conditions of women in Burkina. In March of this year Women With Wings and The BARKA Foundation established its first micro-loan for sustainable women's businesses in Burkina Faso.
• NATIVE AMERICAN INDIGENOUS ISSUES: Healing Winds (http://www.healingwinds.net) will provide hosting of video material documenting the Consortium’s work on its online portal Seek TV (http://www.seektv.tv) on its “Humanity in Concert” channel and will work with the Consortium to create relationships between villages, communities, elders and healers of Burkina Faso and First Nations/Aboriginal peoples of North America including Canada and Mexico.
“We support the vision and mission of the BARKA Burkina Consortium, particularly in providing access to the basic human right of clean water for the people of Burkina Faso. This is an issue of particular importance to us as it also affects indigenous communities here in the United States where MDGs also need to be achieved.”Fidel Moreno, Co-Director
• CONSCIOUS EVOLUTION: Humanity in Concert an organization that encourages, supports and promotes individuals and organizations working together to co-create a more peaceful and compassionate world will assist the Consortium in promotion, publicity and networking.
“Humanity is on the verge of a magnificent shift of consciousness. The BARKA Burkina Consortium is a solution-oriented endeavor bringing together organizations that are making a difference. They are committed to shifting belief systems and creating new templates so that Burkina Faso can point toward a path of abundance and sustainability for all humanity in concert. We encourage you to support this project to your fullest extent in order for its vision to be realized.” Susan Jameson, Director
• INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT: Future Now, an experimental education collective in Moscow, Russia will develop relationships of learning between children, adults and elders of Russia, the U.S., and Burkina Faso.
“Future Now is an international project aimed at creating, testing and implementing an innovative methodology of educating, as well as facilitating the integrative development of people. It aspires to create a rich intercultural, inter-generational, interfaith environment that helps realize and manifest unique life purpose of every individual, and become fully conscious of the uniqueness and sacredness of all life on Earth”, Michael Yoshpa, Director.
