We are Jan, Melissa and Chloé, three Cultural Management Master's students at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB). As part of a Project Management class, we have embarked on an adventure in partnership with cultural stakeholders from Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso.
This project is a collaboration between our Master's in Brussels and the Master's in Art, Management and Cultural Administration (AGAC), at the Université Joseph Ki-Zerbo in Ouagadougou, the Espace Culturel Gambidi, and the Cultural Platform of the Schools and Universities of Burkina Faso (P.C.E.U.BF.).
We travelled to Ouagadougou in November 2019, to meet the three AGAC students - Mariam, Alima and Olivier - with whom we were going to create the project, and all our cultural partners. Over the course of a month, we met a large number of people, had unforgettable artistic and human experiences and, together with Mariam, Alima and Olivier, created a multicultural project: the Belfaso Festival. This festival is on the theme of "magic, witchcraft and social cohesion" and is a starting point for comparing and merging the visions of each country. It will allow us to look at questions such as gender, love and social exclusion through the lens of different artistic forms.
This one-month stay in Ouagadougou was vocational, but also intense in human terms; we were determined to complete our project and delighted to be part of a project that was trying to use culture to create a bridge between north and south.
Jan, Melissa et Chloé