A Nonprofit Organization
HOPE FOR DESPERATE HEARTS
BURKINA FASO
Feeding Widows and the Elderly
There are many widows and elderly in the villages of Burkina Faso that are in need of basics to get by, such as food, clothing, bedding, and medical attention. Hope For Desperate Hearts supplies 70 elderly widows with quarterly bags of rice donation and necessary household items to improve their daily lives.
Income Generating Activities
In 2021, Hope For Desperate Hearts launched a small-business training program that teaches stay-at-home women to weave fabrics that they can then sell to make a living.
HFDH provides graduates of the program with the necessary materials to continue what they learned and to set up shop at the market each week, beginning a new way of life.
In 2025, HFDH has started a new initiative, which consists of giving chickens to stay-at-home women in villages to raise them. Each woman received 5 chickens (4 hens and 1 rooster), which will provide both eggs and an opportunity to generate income through sales in the local market. We are excited about this initiative.
The Baïta Barro Backpack Drive
As an elementary school teacher, Baïta Barro especially enjoyed Hope for Desperate Hearts’ Back-To-School activities. Every year she asked us to remember Burkina Faso students in need of backpacks. Started 2025-2026 school year, Hope for Desperate Hearts provides backpacks to students throughout Burkina Faso during back to school season, in remembrance of Baïta Barro's passion for education.
Clothing for Children in Villages
In 2022, through a great friendship with a group of farmers in Pennsylvania, HFDH started clothing children in the village of Dahorè in Burkina Faso during Christmas.
In 2025, some other friends of HFDH joined the campaign, and we were able to also serve children in the village of Douna.
We are thankful for all of the wonderful friends who are supporting our work in Burkina Faso. The children are very happy to receive new clothes for the holiday.
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The Baïta Barro Scholarship
This scholarship fund honors Baïta Barro’s vision for girls with disadvantaged backgrounds to pursue higher education in Burkina Faso. The scholarship enables students in need of financial assistance who are committed to academic excellence to receive a college education.
The scholarship may also provide training for young women, to complete a two-year government training to become a teacher, like the young woman, now employed as an elementary school teacher in the region of Bobo-Dioulasso, in Burkina Faso, for whom HFDH paid the teacher training in 2022, following the late Baïta Barro's suggestion.
Program for Youth
Started in 2021 with the driver training program that paid for training for dozen men to get their driver’s license, this year 2026, we are starting tailor training program for youth, so that they can buy and sew into garments for sale, the fabric from our stay-at-home women who were trained to weave fabrics and sell them as income generating activity.
The program would give the women regular clients to purchase their fabric, and employment to youth.