By Adama Kone, Teacher Project Coordinator

Girls’ education is a challenging subject everywhere in Mali. But it is especially problematic in rural areas, like those where our schools are located. Many parents in Mali do not think that a girl’s education is as valuable as a boy’s. As a result, parents do not support their daughters and many girls drop out of school and suffer a life limited by their lack of education.

Parents’ attitudes towards girls’ education are also passed down to their sons. As a step toward breaking that cycle, we host discussions with boys at our schools about girls’ education as a human right and as an issue that improves everyone’s future — boys, girls, families, and communities.

For example, in March we hosted a boys’ discussion at Little Heroes Academy I in Mana, in which seventy-four boys participated.

As goals, we want to have boys understand the value of girl’s education, to know the obstacles to girls’ education, and to be aware of how they can be allies for girls’ education. Many boys chose to share their willingness to support their sisters in school and at home. Many boys mentioned they would like their sisters to become doctors, police officers, teachers, or fire fighters in order to help their families.

I had the boys work in groups to identify barriers to girls’ education and ideas of how they could help break down the barriers. Many boys were eager to go to the chalkboard and to share their ideas, especially when we talked about the causes of girl drop out. Most of the boys realized the long list of reasons why of girls drop out and they think that actions should be taken by their parents too in order allow girls to complete their education.

That day, we also had cakes for the boys group that would participate well by giving more answers that are right. That idea of giving cakes made boys even more engaged and competing because each group of boys wanted to win and get more cakes. Boys at Little Heroes Academy I middle school love cakes! When the winning group received their cakes, they made fun of the others by jumping round, screaming, showing off, and biting the cakes after the meeting!

By the end of the discussion, the boys were determined to help their sisters at school and home from now on. I feel confident they understood that they are allies for their sisters and that they are willing to take up that role.