Mali Rising’s Girls Project works intensively in eight of our 25 partner villages. However, I visit each of our other schools to meet with the girls there at least once each year – my hope is to help and inspire them at least a little and help them stay in school. With this in mind, in May I visited our schools in the villages of Tanima and Seguessona. On my return from visiting our girls in Tanima, I met a young woman called Dokoro Sissoko.
Volunteers' Hard Work On the Way to Mali
Our volunteers have been going absolutely full speed this spring to create tools and school supplies for our students in Mali. We were all geared up to send the results to Mali via shipping container, when our shipping partnership fell through. However, good deeds do not go unrewarded and last week we were able to sneak a good amount of donated and created supplies on to a shipping container now headed to our students!
Mr. Touré: Mali Rising's Most Creative Teacher of the Year!
I believe, and I hope you do too, that great teachers equal great school results! Mali Rising believes in the importance of our teachers too. As a result, this year we honored three of our most outstanding teachers with special awards to acknowledge their dedication. Mali Rising’s Teacher Awards have three categories: the most creative teacher, the most helpful teacher, and, last but not the least, the most improved teacher. Today, I wanted to share the story of one of the winning teachers, who won in the Most Creative Teacher category: Mr. Touré of Judge Memorial Middle School in Sankama was granted the most creative teacher award.
Mothers Taking Action for Their Daughters
In most rural villages in Mali, women play a fairly important role in taking charge of children's school fees. But to save money, many men prefer to enroll only boys in school and prefer girls stay at home with their mother. Yet who pays the students' tuition fees? In the majority of our schools, women pay school fees. To raise funds for the fees, women may cut firewood, pick shea nuts to make shea butter, grow vegetables in gardens to sell at the market, or grow. These hard-working mothers can do amazing things for thier kids…with just a tiny bit of help!
The Dreams of Oumou
Oumou Sidibé is one of our Girls Project students in Kolimba. She is 16 years old and lives in Kolimba with her parents. She is in the 9th grade in Nièta Kalanso Middle School. Oumou repeated the 6th grade because of an illness, but despite this setback she did not drop out of school. Oumou loves school because she would like to have a job and to be able to earn a living. This would allow her to help her parents and her village. Read more….
We Love Our Volunteers!
Wow — it is hard to overstate how much we love our volunteers! They have been simply overwhelming us with support for our students in Mali, and we stand in awe. In just the last month, volunteers have created hundreds of sets of flashcards, written hundreds of notes of encouragement to students, created or donated hundreds of pieces for menstrual kits, and so much more. We want you to be part of this amazing group of people.
Boys Can Stand for Girls’ Education
Although girls in Mali want to stay in school, it is really challenging for them to stay there. There are many obstacles to girl’s education, such as early marriage, forced marriage, long distances to walk to school, rapes, and sexual abuse. This is especially true in rural areas. As a result, many girls drop out of school in Mali each year. This isn’t a failure of the girls, but instead a failure of the whole community — everyone should be involved in helping girls be educated. Our Girls Project works to make sure parents are invested in their daughters’ education, but we also work with the boys in our schools to make sure they are allies to their girl peers.
Teachers MAKE the School at Christiana Norris Middle School
Mali middle schools are typically home to an average of four teachers, although our schools range from 3 to 11! Because there are 8 core subjects in Mali’s national curriculum, teachers must cover multiple subjects. For example, the French teacher is usually required to teach history and/or geography as well. Often the English teacher will teach art or another subject. At Christiana Norris Middle School, there are currently four teachers, including the principal.
Serious Soumaila Has a Plan for His Village & His Future
My name is Soumaila Doumbia. I am 17 years old. I am in the 8th grade at Christiana Norris Middle School in Banko. I live in Banko with my parents. My father is a preacher (seer). He teaches me a bit about what he does but it's my school studies that I love. My mother sells pancakes at the market. Last year for 7th grade, I traveled to a school in a village called Touban. Touban is 11 km from Banko. I made this trip by bike in 90 minutes with other boys from my village who attended the same school. I was often late and the bike often broke.
Celebrating our Girl Leaders!
By Hindaty Traore, Girls Project Manager
Two years ago, we began a new piece of our Girls Project work. After three intense years of work in our initial three Project villages, we trained local young women to return to their village to shepherd the villages’ Girls Group meetings and serve as role models for young girls in the village.
Each year, we carefully select two young women as Girl Leaders in each village. We provided extensive training and support for the Girl Leaders throughout their year of service, along with a stipend. The training of Girl Leaders has enabled them to become aware of their limitations, to mobilize their own resources, and to have confidence in each other.
All of the Girl Leaders had a story before the training. Some girls felt unable to go stand in front of a crowd and convince other girls to continue school, some were shaking, some were crying when they tried to stand in front of a class, and others were not confident in themselves. However, in early April this year’s Girl Leaders left their last training of the year with strong skills and positivity.
This training was an opportunity for the girls to train in teamwork, to raise awareness, to bring out hidden assets. The skills they have learned helped the Girl Leaders serve our Girls Groups, but have also helped them in their larger lives. For example, according to the Girl Leaders their parents treat them differently because they trust the young women more.
A job well done deserves an excellent reward. To salute the wonderful work they have done throughout the school year, Mali Rising awarded the Girl Leaders certificates of recognition. For this presentation of certificates, we met at the Bamako National Park. Half of the Girl Leaders had never been to the park before, so the trip itself was part of the reward! To make the event even more powerful, we invited last school year’s Girl Leaders to attend too – creating a powerful group of young women to celebrate together!
Looking back over the last two years, the 11 Girl Leaders (we have 6 Girl Leaders each year, but one women returned to repeat her service this year) we trained to return to their respective villages to support their younger peers in middle school carried out their tasks successfully. For 9 months the Girl Leaders went to the villages to meet with the girls and help them stay in school and succeed. Girl Leaders are a kind of human transmission of skills, courage, motivation, and role modeling to all girls in their village.
The 11 girls trained in the last two years have become good examples in the village. If fact, there are some girls who dream of being like the Girl Leaders now. The younger girls who are in the village want to take over the role of Girl Leaders someday so they can come home and educate their little sisters in turn!
The benefit of building the leadership capacities of these girls is threefold: it defines the heroines and role models for other young girls, it empowers and makes the Girl Leaders themselves stronger, and it challenges outdated community norms. We love our Girl Leaders!
Check out the photos on this page to see our Girl Leaders as they receive their certificates from me, Hindaty, and explore the National Park together.
