Blog — Mali Rising Foundation

Mana

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Textbooks: Tools We Take for Granted

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As one of my former professors —Pr Ibrahim Sagayar — said: “A teacher or a student without a textbook is like a soldier on the battlefield without a weapon”. Yet all too often in Mali, teachers and students are not armed with textbooks. I recently discussed this problem with two of our partner principals — the principal of Sue Chung Chiu Middle School of Simidji, Mr. Essai Mikoro and the principal of Little Heroes Academy I Middle School of Mana, Mlle. Djenebou Niama Coulibaly.

Aminata Becomes a Clean Hands Expert!

The Little Heroes Academy I Middle School of Mana has more than one hundred students. The school has many challenges to address. One of the main challenges is how to keep kids healthy and be able to attend school. Mali Rising is doing our small part to help with that challenge, by providing hygiene education classes. One student, Aminata, really took the lesson to heart!

New Learning Kits Enliven the Classroom

Because basic tools such as textbooks, maps, educational diagrams, or science materials are missing from Mali classrooms, teachers are really limited in how they can prepare and deliver their lessons. But Mali Rising Foundation has long worked to provide textbooks to our classrooms, but this year we added additional tools provided in kits we loan out to schools for two weeks at a time. We provide two types of Learning Kits to our schools – a Language Kit and a Science Kit. The Language Kit provides resources for teaching both French and English, including books, flashcards, and more. The Science Kit is packed full of scientific drawings, tools for active learning like magnifying glasses and rulers, and other tools. We also provided written instruction sheets that give the teachers multiple ideas about how they can easily incorporate the Kit tools into their lessons.

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Travelogue Day 4: Meeting the Mayor and Mana

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Day four of our trip was a relatively short one, because we had to head north from the little town of Ouelessebougou back to the capitol, Bamako, to pick up a fellow traveler arriving at 2:30 pm. Still, we managed to get a lot done for Mali Rising with an early start and a lot of driving, from meeting the mayor, to visiting Mana, and more.

Why Principal Coulibaly Values Our Principal Peer Meetings

A school without a principal is less than a school! Our principals have a lot on their plates and Mali Rising wants to help them do the best job they can. One of our goals is to have great and frank partnership with our principals. As part of that, we host regular Principal Peer Meetings where we gather 5 to 6 Mali Rising principals to share their challenges and solutions with each other. At our most recent peer meeting in the town of Ouelessebougou, we got to talk with several our principals who participated in it. We already shared the experiences of Principal Cisse earlier this week. Now, let’s hear from Mali Rising’s only female principal, Djenebou Coulibaly…