Photo credit: Iara Lee

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For Burkinabè Bounty, we were privileged to speak with an amazing collection of artists and activists. Below are a few of the great people featured in the film.

Pour Burkinabè Bounty, c’était un grand honneur de parler à une liste incroyable d’artistes et de militants. Voici quelques participants présentés dans le film.

• Art Melody
• Serge Bayala
• Bouda Blandine
• Ima Hado
• Congo Kalifa
• Jean Marie Koalga
• Alif Naaba
• Bonsouindé Ouedraogo
• Lassane Ouédraogo
• Moussa Ouedraogo
• Raphaeli Ouedraogo
• Hamidou Samba
• Blandine Sankara
• Mady Sankara
• Sophie Sedgho
• Ali Tapsoba
• Djakaridia Tiama
• Flora Tognoli
• Onasis Wendker

Art Melody is a hip-hop artist from Bobo-Dioulasso in Burkina Faso.

Link: Art Melody

Serge Bayala, a student of Modern Letters at the University of Ouagadougou, was one of the students removed from university campuses in July 2013. He was arrested for his role mobilizing demonstrations that led to the arrest of over forty students and the destruction of several state vehicles.

Link: Serge Bayala

Bouda Blandine is changing the public’s perception of socially excluded women by profoundly improving the lives of these women. She is enabling women to pull themselves out of poverty, to improve their health, and to exert a greater influence on family decisions. At the core of her approach is educating women on a range of subjects, including social and environmental issues, so that they can change their own actions and prompt others to change as well. Blandine is beginning with women who produce dolo, a traditional beer-like beverage, because they are the least respected due to their profession. Blandine enables the dolo makers to become successful, respected business women by increasing access to literacy courses, disseminating cost-saving methods of dolo production, and advising on the importance of paying taxes. She educates women on health issues such as hygiene, HIV prevention, and family planning. While this education is targeted at dolo makers, women of all professions are invited to learn, thus educating all women and solidifying the dolo producers as role models supporting other women.

Link: Bouda Blandine

Hado Ima is a percussionist who works with Watinoma, an organization focused on sustainable development in Burkina Faso.

Link: Watinoma

Congo Kalifa is a member and representative of UNGVT (Union Namanegbzanga des Groupements Villageois de Tanlili), which brings together forty-four groups: twenty men’s groups with 1,400 members; eleven women’s groups with 1,367 members; and thirteen mixed groups with 3,292 members. Karité butter and soumbala, two basic ingredients of the traditional sauce, are the focus of women’s activities. Soumbala is a yellow edible powder extracted from the fruit of the neré tree, which grows in sandy soil up to a height of 20m and produces long, flat, slightly curved pods, with a rich sugar, mineral salt, and vitamin content. The highly nutritional seeds are gathered, washed, stored for three days until they decompose, and then rolled into tiny balls. This product is used widely throughout Africa as a basis for all kinds of sauces and as a condiment for rice, millet, and meat dishes. It is believed to have therapeutic effects against hypertension.

Link: Terra Madre

Jean-Marie Koalga is a member of Slow Food’s Burkina Faso Network. The Burkina Faso Network, comprised of 124 community members, works to safeguard food biodiversity and support public awareness campaigns, such as those against GMOs, land grabbing, and intensive farming.

Link: Slow Food Burkina Faso Network

Nicknamed the “Barefoot Prince,” Alif Naaba is a musician from the village of Konkistenga in north-western Burkina Faso.

Link: Alif Naaba

Bonsouindé Ouedraogo is the president of the Association for the Development of the Department of Arbolé. Since 2010, the organization has worked to protect the local yam from disappearing. It works to organize producers into a group, train them, and support them with adequate agricultural material to permit them to improve production in both quality and quantity. One of the association’s activities is hosting promotional days to make the local yam more visible and promote its sale. Over the years, following the enthusiasm of committed producers, a yam seed field was created to supply producers with more seeds. This allowed the number of producers to increase by more than three. The association has also organized women into a group to support female producers. In collaboration with the Global Environment Fund, the group signed a contract with researchers at the University of Ouagadougou to conduct a study on this yam variety and collect results that will help producers increase production. The association is currently supported by Slow Food, which has helped its organic production, processing, and safeguarding initiatives.

Lassane Ouedraogo is on the board of the NAPAM-BEOGO Association, which works to reintegrate precarious young people into the field of craftsmanship in Ouagadougou.

Link: Napam-Beogo

Moussa Ouedraogo is a respected farmer from the village of Loumbila and an expert in seed production and nursery management. The plants in his nurseries are made available to the local vegetable-growers, who learn from him how to produce their own seeds. The Napoko farm serves as a school for the Loumbila growers, who are organized in a network to make the most of Moussa’s experience. The farm is planted with local varieties and chicken, cows, goats, and sheep are also raised. Moussa fertilizes the soil with manure from the animals and also produces biogas, which is used to illuminate the farm and fuel the tomato-drying process.

Link: Moussa Ouedraogo

Raphaeli Ouedraogo is a yam producer in Arbolé and part of the Association for the Development of the Department of Arbolé.

Hamidou Samba started teaching in 2010 and has been using his school activities to defend the environment since 2012. In 2014, he got involved with the Slow Food movement. He defends biodiversity and is the group’s leader in Bingo, a small town located in the central west region of Burkina Faso. Bingo is home to fourteen villages, in which Slow Food has planted eleven school and community gardens.

Blandine Sankara is the coordinator of the Yelemani Association, which organizes around food sovereignty at the national and international level.

Link: Yelemani

Mady Sankara is a member of the Yako Center of Artisanal Producers. The Mossi people, the largest ethnic group in the northeastern town of Yako, produce and process various non-timber forest products. To promote local varieties, the center works on small agricultural projects and promotes items such as soumbala, fermented sorrel seeds, dried fish, and millet flour. This business supports a number of local small-scale producers, whose best-selling product is the desert date (Balanites aegyptiaca), harvested by around a dozen women in the community. A small shop has also been opened, selling many local foods made using non-wood forest products. Some are also sold in the capital city. These products include cookies made with baobab and jujube fruit, roots, soaps made from desert dates, jujubes or Sclerocarya birrea (marula), and seasonings like soumbala and liikalga.

Link: Terra Madre

Sophie Sedgho is a national project coordinator for the Educational Garden run by La Saisonnière, an association in Ouagadoudou that works to guarantee the economic and social rights of Bukinabé women.

Link: La Saisonnière

Ali Tapsoba is the president of Terre A Vie, an association that advocates for food sovereignty and human rights and against GMOs and land-grabbing. It is a member of the Collectif Citoyen pour l’Agro-Écologie, a group of citizens promoting ecological agriculture.

Link: CCAE

Djakaridia Tiama works on plant breeding and genetics. His goal is to preserve endangered plants.

Flora Tognoli is the manager of WATINOMA, a volunteer organization that has been working in sustainable development in Burkina Faso since 2004. The WATINOMA Association is committed to promoting, valorizing, and sustaining traditional and tribal cultures, with particular regard to African cultures and fostering cultural exchanges, equal rights, and brotherhood among peoples. WATINOMA sells traditional Burkinabè musical instruments and handcrafted accessories.

Link: Watinoma

Onasis Wendker is a young artist in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.

Link: Onasis Wendker