Koloko Orphanage



Orphanage Click Here for the Koloko Village Slideshow Over the years, Yonel Perez traveled the world searching for the best place to realize his vision of helping orphans. He found that place in Koloko, a small village in one of the poorest countries on Earth, Burkina Faso. On November 18, 2006, he opened the doors of YIRIBA to four young orphans. The first home was a very small three room house, with two beds, a set of clothing per child, a small table and two kerosene lamps to use for illumination. Three years later, and thanks to all of your support, the orphanage has grown. Yiriba now hosts ten healthy and happy children in a four bedroom house that gets electricity from two solar panels, each kid owns three sets of clothing and they even have soccer balls to play with in their free time. Yonel chose to open an orphanage because he grew up in a very poor district of Lima, Peru, and was orphaned at the age of eight. “I remember crying and calling for my mother all the time for about a year; when I asked my brothers and sisters for my mom they would say ‘she went in a long trip to get some fish to sell’. I was too young to understand”. He knows by experience that life can be very hard and painful for children who live on the streets and do not have someone to go when they are being abused, someone to ask for a plate of food when they cannot bear the hunger, or a shelter to go to when it is cold and raining. Right now, the orphanage meets very basic human needs; three meals per day, bedding, clothing, education, extracurricular activities, electricity from solar panels. Although it doesn’t sound like much, life for the children at Yiriba is quite different from before they entered the orphanage. The first time Nounmounje stepped inside Yiriba and saw what his new house would be like, he cried. He is now a healthy 15-year-old and wants to become a English teacher. The Village of Koloko Koloko, a village of farmers, is been a forgotten place, even by African standards. It is in the southwest of Burkina Faso, a land-locked nation in West Africa. About 2,000 people live in Koloko, a place of few resources or opportunities. It is difficult to describe how poor the villagers are because most of us have no reference point for this kind of poverty. Most villagers are illiterate. Water comes from a well. Electrical lines do not reach the village. The trees do not bear fruit; vegetables fail to grow. Many mothers are single parents, who leave the house at 5:30 in the morning to work in the cotton fields all day under 120 degree heat. Their children—like most children in the village—play in the dirt, and go hungry until evening. The single meal of the day is a handful of rice, flavored with juice from boiled-down seeds, or a local grain that is something like hominy grits.
	News Thank you for your support at our First Annual Fundraiser On Saturday May 23rd!

Home About Us Koloko Orphanage Donate or Sponsor Events Contact Us Volunteer
Yiriba Foundation P.O. Box 191474 San Francisco, CA 94119