A school isn't worth the bricks it's built with if you don't have good teachers working inside. We believe that, and so do our generous supporters. Thanks to attendees at our annual Soiree, in December 2017 we hosted our third teacher training. Teachers in Mali are often provided with very little education and then sent to remote villages to sink or swim with classrooms that can be filled with 100 + students. With your help, we sent 39 teachers back to the classroom with new skills and new energy to help our kids!
Give a Girl the Gift of Grit
As 2017 winds down and we enjoy the holiday season, many of us are feeling generous and grateful. If you're thinking about channeling those feelings into wrapping up your charitable giving for the year, consider giving a Mali Rising girl the gift of grit.
Investing in Great Teachers for Great Students
One Stop Spot For Keeping Up With The Girls Project
As regular blog readers will know, we are very proud of our new Girls Project. In its very first year, the Project returned wonderful results for our girl students in Mali. As we launch the Project's second year, there's even more going on. And with so many of you particularly interested in supporting our girls, we created a new hub for tracking news about the Girls Project...
A Girl Scout Gives Back
Here at Mali Rising, we love Girl Scouts. Last year, we partnered with a troop based near our Utah office. We connected that troop with one of our Girls Groups at our school in Kolimba, Mali and the troop sent colorful, thoughtful letters of encouragement to the girls in Mali. At that troop meeting last year, we discussed various barriers to girls' education in Mali. One scout -- Skyler Dey -- took that discussion to heart. She decided to focus on a solution to one of those barriers -- a lack of supplies for managing girls' periods.
Inside Peek: A Chat With Hindaty, Girls Project Coordinator
Strong. Motivated. Empowering. These are just a few of the words that come to mind when we think of Hindaty Traore, our Girls Project Coordinator. Hindaty first joined our team as a volunteer intern, where her passion and drive was clearly evident in the work she did. After almost two years, she was hired as a staff member and since then, continues to dedicate herself to the Girls Project.
Our Girls Rock! Evaluating the First Year of Our Girls Project
During the 16/17 school year, we launched our pilot Girls Project in three of our partner villages: Beneko, Simidji, and Kolimba. Our pilot goals are: to improve recruitment of girls to middle school, to retain more girls in school throughout middle school, and to make sure the girls see real results in terms of school success and life skills. We are delighted to share some great news from the Project's first year...
Checking In With Our Girls Before Summer
School is out for summer in Mali! While that means less homework for our students, in means more for staff here at Mali Rising. In particular: math homework. Why? Well, over the summer is when we do the majority of our evaluation for the year. We review all kinds of measures and metrics designed to better understand what's working in our schools and what isn't. From enrollment to test scores, we dig through it all. Currently, I'm working with a lot of wonderful information collected by our Girls Project Coordinator, Hindaty, to evaluate the first year of the Project. Because this is a new project, evaluation is particularly important...
Aminata's School Success Means a Better Future for Her Baby Boy
Utah Girl Scouts Supporting Mali's Girl Students
Back in April, I had the pleasure of meeting with a great Girl Scout troop here in Salt Lake City. We talked about girls' education in Mali -- the challenges and the benefits. The Scouts wrote letters of encouragement to girl students participating in Mali Rising's Girls Project in the tiny village of Kolimba. The basic goal? To simply let our girls know that as they struggled to get to school each day, someone far away was rooting for them. I think the photos I received from the letter delivery in Kolimba speak to how thoroughly the Girls Scouts achieved their goal! Check them out...
