Paper for All was born in 2005 following a trip to Burkina Faso by one of Paper for All's members.  At that time, 25 people, 10 volunteers from Europe and 15 local volunteers, gathered to teach during about a month in a local school in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.  

 

While teaching, the main problem appeared to be the lack of academic resource, and especially paper.  It was outrageous to see so many children were so willing to learn but just unable to work in proper conditions.  Classes of 30 were indeed filled with as many as 80 children, with 3/4 children per bench instead of 2.  Most importantly, the children did not paper to write their lessons, exams or exercises and would use the margins from notebooks used by their brothers and sisters before them.  Learning in such conditions, despite the will to absorb knowledge and work, is almost impossible.  Paper for All aims to answer this need for better academic conditions, and enable these children to learn and see their efforts rewarded by knowledge. 

 

 

Paper for All grew and the scope of actions went from one to four schools, while fundraising teams and entities were established in France and the US.  Today, Paper for All is a non profit registered in four countries (France, the UK, the US and Burkina Faso), reaching with potential for further scope expansion.