IBRAHIM TRAORÉ’S MESSAGE TO BURKINA FASO’S CHILDREN

On 23 August, President Ibrahim Traoré of Burkina Faso delivered a simple message to children: Work hard and love your country.

Burkina Faso is a state in Africa’s Sahel region, where shrubs dot the arid landscape. After a successful military coup d’état that ousted a Western-aligned leader in 2022, it has been working to increase productivity, development and national sovereignty. And everybody has a role to play.

Children may not be able to do the work of adults, but Traoré pushes back by encouraging them to help their parents.

Outsiders may be shocked to see children able to navigate farmlands or forestlands with a machete at hand. However, for many people like Traoré, raised within Burkinabé culture, children have household responsibilities and obligations known in the West as ‘chores.’ They are also taught important skills that are necessary to thrive in their societies, such as cooking, farming and basic commerce. Education in pre-colonial Africa was hands-on and based on experiential learning. Traditional African education was not built around a classroom and a chalkboard, but rather upon farming tools, cooking utensils, and other equipment. Many would also learn to read and write through the study of religious texts.

In contemporary Western society, children live atomised lives, separated from the ‘adult world,’ with restrictions on where children can go and what they can do. However, in much of Africa, children are tied around their mother’s torso from the moment they are born, travelling everywhere on a daily basis and developing maturity, self-confidence, and social skills at a young age.

Video credit: @rtburkina (IG and X) @rtbgroup (TikTok)