Introduction

St. Aidan’s County High School in Carlisle Cumbria has established a link with “The Association for the Promotion of Self Help”, ASAP, in the village of Piela in Burkina Faso.

The Millennium was seen as an opportunity to consider our time and place in the world. Jon Snow, broadcaster, saw the educational potential for focusing on countries which lie along the zero degree meridian line. “On the Line”, a partnership of organisations including Channel 4, Oxfam, WWF-UK, VSO and the Central Bureau for Exchange and Visits, enabled young people to learn about other people who share the same time but live in different countries and cultures.

In 1999 through the initiative of Penny Ritson, Andy Lesley and Ian Rousell, pupils from the school started to work, “On the Line”. Pupils from the school and a group of women from the village of Bilem Purga in Burkina Faso received matched funding to buy, rear and sell livestock. Details of the contrasting enterprises were exchanged. From this small start, a network of relationships, fund raising, cultural exchanges and the development of educational materials have taken place. The “St Aidan’s –Burkina Faso Web Site” is one development.