Hirondelle de l'Avenir: nearly two decades of schools, boreholes and gardens across Benin
From a coding school in Porto-Novo to an orphanage garden in Sakété, the charity founded in 2008 is building a path from first school day to first job.
Lire cet article en français →
Cotonou — In the Sokomey neighbourhood of Porto-Novo, a riverside community of more than 7,000 people, most of them under 20, families who live from fishing, farming and livestock long depended on water from traditional sources exposed to pollution. Since July 2025, a new borehole has supplied safe water to nearly 2,000 of them.
The borehole is one of more than 30 built across Benin since 2008 by Hirondelle de l'Avenir, a solidarity organisation now active in 14 Beninese cities. Its aim, it says, is an "ecosystem" that carries young people from their first day at school to their first job.
From school kits to scholarships
The organisation supports about 600 sponsored children. In 2025 its teams ran four distribution rounds, each reaching 495 children in Aguégués, Allada, Houéyogbé, Avrankou, Azowilissè, Porto-Novo, Tourou-Parakou and partner orphanages, with family food kits of rice, oil, pasta, sardines, tomatoes, maize and soap. Before the new school year, 418 children received school kits with supplies, uniforms and learning materials.
For older students, the Hirondelles Scholarship pays for higher education and training, with particular attention to young women. About 50 have been supported since the programme began. Among those helped in 2025 were Salamatou, 25, in her third year of biomedical analysis; Caleb, 22, a journalism student in Cotonou who graduated from high school with honours after growing up in an orphanage; and Antoinette, 23, a young mother who has returned to education to train in beauty care.
Coding, and first businesses
In Porto-Novo, the organisation runs a free coding school that gives priority to girls. In 2025, 30 children completed 427 hours of lessons in programming, logical thinking and problem-solving: eight hours a week during term and 40 hours a week in the holidays.
The same year brought its first entrepreneurship grants. Jennifer, 19, from Allada, who left school to learn sewing, bought an overlock machine and now meets her customers' orders on her own. Belle-Vida, 22, from Houéyogbé, started a small shop selling everyday goods to her neighbours. Nafissatou, 21, a young mother raising her son alone, opened a second-hand clothing stall in Cotonou and, when that struggled, bounced back with a food business she is proud of.
The grants are the first step towards a "Connected Women" programme intended to help more women reach economic independence.
An orphanage that feeds itself
At the Saint-Augustin orphanage in Sakété, a pilot vegetable garden launched in March 2025 now feeds more than 100 people, including 60 permanent residents. Run by the orphanage head, Sister Mathilde Ohoussou, and coordinated by Zoumarou Ouorou, deputy director of Hirondelle de l'Avenir Bénin, the fenced, natural-fertiliser plot produced 2,256 bunches of amaranth, 1,680 kg of jute leaves, 1,152 aubergines, 480 kg of African nightshade, 400 kg of bitter leaf, 180 kg of okra and 40 kg of chilli peppers between April and December. The children help look after it. The organisation plans to repeat the model at other orphanages.
A Beninese team on the ground
The work in Benin is run by a local team led by director Rodrigue Mehou, with coordinators and community relays in the north, in Aguégués and in Allada. In Parakou, a local team has supported children and families for 17 years. The organisation also runs health support through a network of partner doctors, and in October 2025 took its scholarship students to a breast cancer awareness day in Cotonou with the association AIMES.
Founded in 2008 by Sophie Thouvenel, Hirondelle de l'Avenir had operating income of €148,100 in 2025, three-quarters of it from public donations, and says 69% of spending went to programmes. It also organises registered "participatory solidarity" trips to Benin, 42 travellers in 2025, and well-being days for people in hardship in Paris.
Its plans for 2026 include a bootcamp for the children it supports, more orphanage gardens, and fundraising in the United States through Friends of Fondation de France.
Source: Hirondelle de l'Avenir 2025 annual report and press kit, November 2026.
