The village of Temnaoré, in northern Burkina Faso, is home to a very poor community made up largely of children. Despite its very limited means, the community welcomes and cares for a large number of refugees who arrive every day from the north of the country, fleeing the armed conflict in the Sahel, the new "world centre of terrorism" according to The Economist.

Given the village's location and the precarious situation of its inhabitants, Temnaoré is an opportunity to improve the future of a very young community and to equip it to welcome more and more refugees.
Father Mathias, the young priest who has set up a school for the children with very few resources and who looks after the Temnaoré medical centre, is the key person who made it possible for Intermed ETS to visit the village and assess its situation during our mission to Burkina Faso in December 2023.

The critical needs identified by Intermed together with Mathias are:
• The school is too small and the existing buildings are in poor condition: many buildings need structural strengthening, and classes currently reach 80 children in rooms that would normally hold 30. Better school facilities would give children access to a proper education and help the teachers extend their offer, so that older boys and girls can continue their studies.
• Lack of school supplies: students do not even have basic materials such as exercise books, pencils and textbooks to study from.
• Water supply: there is only one well in the whole village, which is a serious problem. Building more water supply systems is one of the community's priorities.
• The poor condition of the mother and child health centre: the centre serves women from the village and the surrounding countryside, but its facilities are in poor condition. It needs upgrading so that it can offer new mothers a safe place to give birth and to care for their babies in their first days of life, together with the education needed to reduce malnutrition in newborns.