The BARKA Foundation, based in Massachusetts, USA and Burkina Faso, is a non-profit organization co-founded by Ina and Esu Anahata that reaches out to the people in West Africa to improve the quality of their lives.

BARKA is an African word that means “thank you, please,” an expression of blessing and gratitude. Neither Ina nor Esu had any background in doing humanitarian and organizational work.

Yet they set aside their careers and changed their lives with great courage to follow the call from deep within their hearts.

HOST: In the year of 2004, after making several trips to Africa, Ina and Esu Anahata decided something needed to be done to help the people of Burkina Faso, a small country in West Africa that faces many of the same challenges encountered by other developing nations.

They established The BARKA Foundation and set out to assist the country in achieving the United Nations Millennium Development Goals by 2015. These are a set of eight broad-based goals, such as universal primary education, agreed upon by 189 world leaders at the United Nations Millennium Summit in 2000.