News stories by Brahima Ouédraogo, page 2

Emeline Djigma, a twenty-year-old domestic worker, is preparing for the entrance exam to the National Teachers' College this year. She hopes she'll make it, having finally obtained her secondary school certificate thanks to five years of evening classes.

More than 20 million people will be vaccinated between now and the end of the year in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger as a mass vaccination campaign using a new conjugate vaccine unfolds across West Africa. Manufactured in India, MenAfriVac offers health authorities a powerful weapon against a deadly disease.

Elizabeth Kaboré says she has paid for each of her visits to the clinic, despite a government promise that prenatal check-ups in health centres would be free.

An initiative to keep girls in school by supporting income-generating activities for their mothers is bearing fruit in Burkina Faso, where poverty and cultural values still deprive many girls of an education.

The government of Burkina Faso has embarked on the construction of 55,000 latrines each year to improve access to proper sanitation for the population from the present 10 percent to 54 percent by 2015.

Military exercises are under way in the Sahel region as part of the United States-led Trans-Saharan Counter Terrorism Partnership. Participating militaries are enthusiastic, but civil society cautions that force may not be enough to ensure regional security.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) and its partners hope to eliminate the circulation of the polio virus in West Africa as soon as June by launching the first round of national synchronised immunisation days against the debilitating disease.