As Good Shepherd communities across Africa prepare for a significant step in the Congregation’s regionalization process, the community in Burkina Faso is bringing to that shared journey the daily experience of mission: standing alongside women in prison, equipping young women for employment, supporting children’s development and forming new members through direct contact with people experiencing vulnerability.

Together with South Africa, Angola–Mozambique, the East Central Africa Province—comprising Kenya, the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan and Uganda—and Senegal, Burkina Faso has chosen to form a new Region of Africa. The five Units will hold an online pre-Chapter on July 31 and August 1, followed by the Regional Chapter in Kenya from October 8–19, 2026.

The decision followed an extended process of dialogue, reflection and prayer in which participants spoke of both their fears and their hopes. The journey has already strengthened mutual understanding and a shared conviction that the Units can respond to the Good Shepherd mission more effectively when they bring their resources, experience and zeal together.

This structural transition is closely connected to the realities of mission. In Bobo-Dioulasso, the Good Shepherd community continues its pastoral presence at the city’s prison, with particular attention to women. At the beginning of 2026, the prison received 70 women detained following arrests related to soliciting in public spaces, many of whom were foreign nationals.

The sisters and pastoral workers offer regular listening and spiritual accompaniment, as well as group activities such as aerobics and board games, while training in baking and textile work helps women develop practical skills that may support their social reintegration after release.

For Sister Catherine, a temporarily professed sister from Kenya spending an immersion year in Burkina Faso, this ministry has revealed the importance of presence when no immediate solution is possible.

“I have learned that simply being there matters, because the women share so openly,” she said. She recalled sitting beside one woman who wept as she struggled to accept the reality of imprisonment. “I had no words wise enough, so I didn’t offer any. I simply sat beside her.”

The encounter left Sister Catherine with a lesson that reaches beyond prison ministry: “Ministry sometimes means just being the person who doesn’t look away when the tears come.”

Elsewhere in Bobo-Dioulasso, the Rose Virginie Vocational Training Center is helping young women move toward economic independence. Fourteen students entered its six-month program in October 2025, studying cooking, pastry-making, table service, entrepreneurship, computing and basic legal knowledge.

After three months of training, they completed four-week placements in local restaurants. Positive feedback from partner businesses confirmed both the students’ progress and the value of collaboration between the center and local employers. The group graduated on March 31, 2026, and some students have since received employment opportunities. A new cohort—the center’s 24th—began training on April 13, 2026.

At Les Agneaux du Bon Pasteur Early Childhood Center, the close of the 2025–2026 academic year highlighted a wider commitment to children’s learning, health, and protection. The center organized a medical day during which a pediatrician examined the children and answered parents’ questions. Learning also moved beyond the classroom: the children visited the Bobo-Dioulasso fire brigade to discover how emergency services work and learn about safety, before visiting a farm in Kiri where they explored fish farming and gardening. Made possible through collaboration among parents, teachers and administrators, these experiences supported the children’s well-being while helping them engage with their wider community and local environment.

The mission is also shaping those preparing to enter the Congregation. During February, the pre-novices spent a month immersed in local ministries, accompanying women and girls at the Havre du Bon Pasteur, internally displaced women participating in an agricultural project, children receiving educational support, preschool pupils, and young women at the Rose Virginie Vocational Training Center. Their formation was therefore rooted not only in study and prayer, but in direct encounters with the people whom the Good Shepherd mission is called to serve.

As the five Units prepare for their pre-Chapter and Regional Chapter, Burkina Faso brings to the emerging Africa Region these concrete experiences of accompaniment, education, formation and partnership. They show that new structures find their meaning when they strengthen presence, nurture children’s development, create pathways to dignity and enable the Good Shepherd mission to respond more closely to the realities of people’s lives.