Success Stories

Benin's 2006 Demographic and Health Survey indicates that knowledge about the transmission of HIV/AIDS is fairly high. However, rural populations lag behind urban populations in complete knowledge about AIDS.
To increase knowledge and improve behaviors at the community and individual levels the Integrated Family Health Program (PISAF) has implemented communications campaigns utilizing community radio, theater and music.More...

For the first time, the Benin Ministry of Health and its partners undertook a national campaign in October 2007 to prevent malaria, one of the primary causes of morbidity and mortality among children under 5 and pregnant women in Benin. The goal of the campaign was to ensure that 80% of children under 5 sleep under an insecticide-treated bed-net. The USAID-funded Integrated Family Health Program (PISAF) played a major role in rolling out this campaign.
To assist the Ministry of Health in planning the campaign, PISAF organized a pilot distribution in one health zone in the Department of Zou/Collines. Thousands of women and their children lined up early in the day to collect their bed-nets, some of them traveling long distances on foot to reach the distribution points. This pilot demonstrated that awareness of the benefits of bed-nets in preventing malaria was widespread and that lack of access to bed-nets appeared to be the main limiting factor. More...

Superintendent Adamon Yawara Elijah is a hero to the teachers and students of Ouassa-Pehunco, Atacora, one of the poorest and most marginalized school districts of northern Benin. Thanks to the USAID funded IFESH training, Mr. Elijah was able to change the school teaching and learning environment and dramatically improve teacher and student performance. For four years, Mr. Elijah was number one of the top ten superintendents in the 36 IFESH project zones and the Ouassa-Pehunco school district went from being one of the worst to one of the best in terms of teacher performance and student attendance and academic success. As a result, pass rate and attendance have increased significantly in all grades. The list of Mr. Elijah's accomplishments is long: the number of primary schools in his district increased from 25 to 47, and the number of children attending school went from 2,400 to 9,800. He even won over parents of the nomadic Fulani tribe to sending their children to school, increasing their attendance from 171 to 1,458. More...

A national study on child trafficking in Benin conducted last year revealed that 15,000 children were trafficked within and outside of the country during the 12 months preceding the study. Of these, 86 percent were girls between 6-14 years old. Typically, trafficked children come from parents who are too poor to support their families. Parents receive a lump sum payment of approximately $40 in return for a child. The girls become "vidomegon," the local word for children who serve as domestic servants, market sellers, and nannies. Boys "vidomegon" work as agricultural and construction laborers. Trafficked children work long, hard hours for little or no payment. They live in poor conditions, and receive no education. More...

The USAID sponsored Ambassadors Girls' Scholarship Program (AGSP) has provided scholarships to girls in communities across Benin since 2004. Recently, the three northern communities of Bembereke, Nikki and Djougou decided to award scholarships to needy boys as well. More...

"Thanks to my scholarship, I am very happy to go to school. Some day I am going to become a doctor, because we have no doctor here." More ...

The Porto Novo School for the Deaf located in a rural community, is the only school in Benin that serves deaf children (it also serves hearing children). Out of 39 AGSP scholars who attend the school, 18 are deaf. The participation of hearing-impaired girls in the AGSP has strongly impacted community perception of the learning potential for hearing challenged children, as well as for girls in general. More...

Christiane Lokono waited several years for an opportunity to go to school."I wanted to go to school. I watched all the children and told everyone I wanted to go to school." Christiane cried at home whenever she saw children her age going to school in her rural community, but Christiane's family had no resources to send her to school.

Christiane described how one day members of the local implementing partner for the Ambassadors Girls' Scholarship Program (AGSP) came to Christiane's community and told her and her family about the possibility of a scholarship. The partner, Action Group for Social Justice and Equity or Groupe d'Action pour la Justice et l'Egalite Sociale- (GAJES), is a non-governmental organization (NGO) that seeks to increase educational opportunities for women and girls in Benin. More...

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