Thank you very much for the presents.

New Year's greeting 2012

The girls from AMPO-Annexe

Before House LINDA was built

Before House LINDA was built the activities of the nutrition project took place under the trees of AMPO.

I. The construction of House LINDA

The construction of the House LINDA took place in the months of august until October 2010.

Roof truss construction of House LINDA

II. Use of the House LINDA

II.1. EDUCATION

House LINDA permits the reception of 95 mothers of malnourished children two times a week to counsel them in points of importance of aliment, composition of children’s rations, hygiene and wastewater treatment. The children’s growth is checked regularly.

Counseling session of House LINDA

II.2. Preparation of enriched mash

The counseling sessions are accompanied by demonstrations of the preparation of enriched mash.

II.3. Observing the children’s growth

The weighing of the children in House LINDA

The growth of the malnourished children is regularly checked by measuring their weight, height and arm girth.

Observing the children's growth

III. Conclusion

House LINDA is opened to all the malnourished children of Ouagadougou and its surrounding area.

8th January
D. Sam, one of our clinic staff died as a result of a moped accident in Ouagadougou. We mourn our friend Sam.

19th January
All the annual reports from all the various facilities and the bookkeeping for 2008 for the whole of AMPO arrive in Germany. We are proud of our directors and our new structures.

13th February
Our new rehab clinic opens. Thanks to the generous donation by a family near Frankfurt we can take in 6 handicapped children or children with severe burns and treat them for three months. There is also room for a bandaging unit and an optical unit. Thank you!

19th February
8-year-old Dimanchi travels to Wuppertal accompanied by Felix to be treated for severe burns. She undergoes 8 operations. She is looked after by a team of more than 12 carers. Sadly her best friend Sanne Lehmann dies at the much too early age of 40. We mourn our good friend of AMPO.

3rd March
Our counselling service P.P. Filles celebrates its 10th anniversary. Hundreds of women come, the local mayor becomes the official patron of this wonderful project, devoted only to the poorest of women, under the gentle care of our sociologist, Hedwige Ouedraogo. She and her team teach all there is to know about women’ rights and hygiene, Aids prevention and familly planning and provide counselling on circumcision. The work is done in the capital (financed by a group in Berlin, the AHK care service) and in many villages (financed by the Arche Noah Foundation). The local German GTZ often asks her for professional advice and assistance. Thank you for your loyalty, professionalism and your great heart.

20th March
The anniversary of the disappearance of our former orphans Abdoulaye and Bureima. Still no trace.

4th May
The thatched roofed refectory in the boys’ orphanage burns down after sparks fly from a neighbouring property, a Catholic mission. Despite several reminders they still have not made any contributions. Thank God we were able to find a noble donor in Pinneberg.

23rd May
A major donor cuts his annual budget. This means the clinic will have to close by the end of the year and the street kids’ project will lose a quarter of its support. This is a shock for everyone. Katrin is still optimistic.

25th May
The DWHH which bears three quarters of the cost of the street kids’ project has a change in structure in favour of agriculture. This means a definite end to the project. The DWHH is very generous in providing funds so that this step can be properly concluded, which AMPO then does. All the kids are covered, including training costs, for the next three years. I. Kargougou, the project leader and the staff received generous severance allowances.

1st June
Catrin Stibbe from Canada finances swimming lessons for all AMPO children. The kids are delighted.

15th June
Only very few of the children have to repeat a year at school. Most achieve good marks and are getting better and better. One of the reasons is that they come to us at an early age and their tutors are there to help and advise them. Those in the final year have extra lessons – and the internet! That is how much we have progressed.

15th July
Mr Kieselhorst, the auditor from Bremen, spends a week externally checking the bookkeeping of all the projects. The AMPO accounts are also externally audited here on a monthly basis. We are getting new bookkeeping software.

25th July
All the AMPO kids set off together for camp for the first time on holiday – singing!

3rd August
We are in shock. No entry permits to West Afica for assistants on alternative national service due to al Qua’eda warnings. Sadly, our hopeful assistant Martin Kruk had to leave.

6th August
The Katheri-Gymnasium in Ingolstadt finances a library for AMPO. At last all the children are able to read at weekends.

9th August
Vincent Christ from Germany donates his entire year’s pocket money to AMPO after his mother read our children’s book to him. Vincent is seven years old. With his money two children will be able to go to school for a year. Thank you, Vincent.

15th August
Finally, after trying for three years we have managed to operate our biogas plant on the Tondtenga farm. We have had a bumper onion crop, but everything else is difficult because of the nematodes in the garden. We are still trying and the garden will soon be relocated.

20th August
Final work done on the extension to the clinic and the summer repair work complete.

25th August
The donor and supporter of our dental practice, Dr Vorauer from Salzburg, pays us a visit, finding the practice remodelled and enlarged – our surprise worked!

1st September
Flood disaster. 150,000 homeless in the capital. Great shock, many dead, hundreds injured, the effects on the poor people (always the worst affected) unforeseeable for the immediate future.

16th September
AMPO receives € 100,000 from Switzerland for our emergency team for the flood victims, see our website report.

25th September
Thanks to Jako-O AMPO can pay school fees for 650 external children.

30th September
Our streetkids’ project closes on schedule after 10 years. All the kids are taken care of and all the staff received severance compensation.

1st October
Our Cinemobil, newly financed and equipped, is off on the road again doing a wonderful counselling job in the provinces.

2nd October
Twenty new children move in to the AMPO orphanages. We are happy to have them! Five of the leavers are shaking in their shoes as they start their new lives „on the outside“. We will continue to support and care for them for another year.

5th October
After many operations, Dimanchi returns to Burkina Faso accompanied by Katrin Rohde and her friend from the village, Tom Bindemann. She speaks better German than French, is now attending school and is happily living in the MIA home. Thanks to all her carers in Germany.

10th October
AMPO was able to hand over the 200th wheelchair this year to a handicapped child. We owe our thanks for this to a donation campaign set up by the chairman of our Sahel e.V. Charity. Many blessings from Africa to this man who is so committed to helping the poor.

14th October
The girls’ orphanage celebrates a major anniversary with many visitors and a national television crew. Psychologist Christine Adamou has been in charge of 60 girls aged between 6 and 18 for ten years now. In comparison it is much easier to look after a cartload of monkeys, I couldn’t do it myself. Christine Adamou has been there from the very beginning, even at the planning stage. She is a wonderfully argumentative colleague and the many discussions on principle we have had over the years have brought us close together. Congratulations, Christine Adamou!

15th October
On the basis of many years of cooperation Katrin Rohde is awarded a certificate of honour by the Order of Mother Teresa.

6th November
AMPO is selected by the state as one of the distribution centres for undernourished mothers and children. Now once a week there are up to 1000 women and their children waiting for their rations in front of our gate.
This meant we had to remodel a storeroom, because it is too dangerous for mothers and children on the major road ouside. We buy a large tent to provide shade and barrels of drinking water.

18th November
The AMPO Charity receives a parcel of 6 hectares of land in the city from the Mayor of Ouagadougou.

28th November
A huge present in every sense of the term was given to us by Karlheinz Kratzer (owner of the IP company) – a small-scale Adidas football pitch. There is nothing like it in the whole of Burkina Faso – and it belongs to AMPO!

1st December
Our worries are over: a budget of SFR 200,000 is donated from Switzerland for our clinic. Cause for celebration! 30,000 poor people, our annual patient count, can heave a sigh of relief. This also means medical care for all the AMPO children.

3rd December
Arrival of the Spanish organisation „Visio sens fronteres“, opticians without borders. They are setting up a spectacle manufacturing unit in our rehab centre. This will be managed by one of our former AMPO orphans who is now a qualified male nurse.

5th December
Apart from a small amount still outstanding, we have paid off our debts to the social security office, which were due to a case of fraud in 2008. AMPO was the victin of a gang of criminals who used forged signatures, receipts and stamps for the purpose of tax fraud. If they had done this on the basis of our payroll acounting we would have noticed, but they embezzled the staff contributions in a perfidious way. Of course AMPO has repaid the contributions to the social security fund. At the end of this year the matter is paractically settled, thank God. It cannot happen again because all payments are now made by cheque.

12th December
German bookstall and Advent coffee at AMPO organised together with Katrin Buchmann from the university in Ouagadougou. Selling books and biscuits (a kind girlfriend spent hours with the smallest AMPO kids baking in our restaurant kitchen), we raised enough money for 5 urgent operations for babies.

15th December
Twelve heavy boxes with French books for the children arrive from Switzerland – welcome to our new, fabulously stocked library.

18th December
In a celebration of thanksgiving the municipal hospital honours its donors. AMPO is high on the list with a contribution of € 18,000 spread over a period of months, intended exclusively for operations for needy children. Thanks to our contributors.

22nd December
Our problem child with the severe burns, Dimanchi, receives a prize from the Mayor for being dux of the school. Miracles do happen!

24th December
A sumptuous Christmas party with 400 guests draws to an end at 2.30 in the morning. Having danced our feet off we stagger off to our mats or to bed. Our Father Christmas (Rainer Willfeld) makes a mamoth effort. None of the 350 children present goes without a gift. Thanks to all those who donated and to the sponsors who have been so generous towards us. Even the German Ambassador is impressed by the joy and vitality of the AMPO children and staff.

25th December
All the children go off to their families for a week while at AMPO the annual financial statement for 2009 and the budget plans for 2010 are prepared. Every director is busy drawing up an annual report. The storerooms have to be tidied.

31st December
Katrin Rohde finds a new „right-hand woman“ who will relieve the pressure – a stroke of luck on the last day of the year! She will start at AMPO in February. All the best, Nicole.

All of us thank God for the year 2009. It was not easy, but all the children are healthy and most of them hard-working, the team of directors is working in harmony as never before, the staff are motivated, Katrin Rohde is setting up one new structure after another and slowly delegates herself out of many tasks. It is wonderful to see how people grow with their responsibility. One of these days I’ll only be coming to AMPO as a visitor …!

A big thanks to our German Charity team. Despite the fact that the work is „only“ voluntary, each member has sacrified many hours of their private lives for Africa’s children in need. May God reward you.

Katrin Rohde
Founder of AMPO, Ouagadougou

Burkina Faso, 31.12.2009

A blind old lady is given a new home – she is crying for joy!

Introduction

Four weeks after the great flood, the situation in Ouagadougou presents itself in the following way: On the 1st of September 2009, 150,000 people lost their homes. At first, they were accommodated in schools and other public buildings. Now, with the beginning of the school year, they were relocated to camps where they live in tents. Many of them, however, refused to live there and found other solutions. At the moment, around 60,000 people live there in extreme poverty. The sanitary conditions and the poor supply of food leave many in despair. On top of that, they suffer from temperatures of 46 degrees Celsius, which makes it unbearable hot in the tents. Although a lot has been accomplished, there is still an infinite amount of work to be done!
The Swiss “Dear Foundation” provided AMPO with a large sum of money as emergency aid. Many longtime friends of the AMPO projects did the same. We would like to thank all the big and small donors in the name of the hardest hit families with many children, the handicapped, the blind and the old. Their blessings flow back abundantly to Europe.
With the help of its competent committee, AMPO was able to achieve the following:

1. Reconstruction

In 12 cases AMPO was able to reconstruct houses for people on their own property giving simple homes to 180 persons. In total, this cost around 26,000 euro. In all cases, the families were victims of the flood. The construction is almost finished and the families are excited to soon have secure homes – this time not made of clay but of concrete.

Head of family with his 11 children

This head of family with his 11 children (3 of his own and 8 entrusted by his deceased brothers) can smile again. Above, the family is standing on the ruins of their former home and below, Katrin Rohde is visiting the almost finished new house – just windows are missing.

The house is nearly finished

2. Social Aid

In many cases assistance was provided to help the population on an individual basis. AMPO distributed around:

• 3 tons of rice
• 3 tons of corn
• 2000 blankets
• 1000 mats
• Soap, school fees, notebooks etc.
• 7,000 euro were distributed cash, most of which goes into transportation and medicine.

Old woman in tent

Old women are often very sick and alone. This old woman is thanking Katrin Rohde for AMPO’s contribution to her health. Of the blankets shown below we distributed 2000. In this camp, real poverty reigns. Poverty does not just mean hunger but also dirt, cold, heat and disease. Only the faith in God makes the population keep their dignity.

We distributed 2000 blankets like this

3. Health

On the very day of the catastrophe, the head of our dispensary, Major Denis Yameogo, ordered medication for 7,000 euro in order to be prepared for a national shortage. He keeps 3,000 euro as a buffer because problems like diphtheria and cholera are likely to come up in the next months in view of the contamination of water.

People waiting in front of the dispensary

4. Costs

For 20 days, six people of our committee were busy on a daily basis in order to implement their programme. The AMPO administration supplied all its vehicles including drivers. All AMPO projects were engaged. Three of the six people in our committee suspended their work as AMPO executives during this time. The six members invested all their energy and experience to serve their country.

• Costs for fuel: 500 euro
• Costs for telecommunication: 150 euro
• Board per person: 4.50 euro per day –> 540 euro