Leon W. Pete Harman Middle School

Female Role Models Inspire Girls

In January, we brought three women from different careers to talk with Girls’ Project girls about their educational and professional backgrounds and the importance of a girl's education. he speakers included a policewoman, an electrician and a firefighter. The visit of three women allowed the girls to to motivate themselves, to be courageous and to know the different functions that women can exercise. The speakers not only talked about their time in school, but also their journey to finding work as a woman. The women stressed the journey to show the girls that magic didn't get them where they are today!

Charging Up Principals for a New School Year

As the new school year got underway in Mali this month, we started gathering groups of our partner schools’ principals together to share ideas and energy. The first such meeting was hosted in the Ouelessebougou area, which is home to the majority of partner villages. It was an energetic meeting and the principals really took ownership of how to help each other in the coming year.

A Graduate Becomes a Nurse & Helps Others

When Mali Rising’s donors sponsor a scholarship, they really do change lives. It is a cliché, but a $500 donation to one of our graduates can turn dreams into reality for a hard working student. Take the case of Mariam Sylla as a case in point.

Travelogue Day 4: Meeting the Mayor and Mana

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.

Principals Make a School Work...And We Help Them!

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 one our principals who participated in it. Let’s read more about what he said…

Mali Rising's Female Teachers Making a Difference

There are a total of 7 women teachers in the Mali rising Foundation schools, out of more than 90 total Mali Rising teachers. This reflects the larger reality of teaching in Mali, where only 14% of teachers are female and that percentage is even lower in remote, rural schools…

Teachers Helping Teachers Teach

At Mali Rising Foundation, we know that building schools is amazing, but not sufficient when it comes to ensuring real learning for our students. Providing good training to our teachers is one of the most valuable things we can do to keep kids learning. One of the ways Mali Rising Foundation helps our teacher is to host teacher peer meetings. Education experts tell us these meetings are unique in the whole country and makes our village schools different from the others

Bringing Teachers Together To Learn Together

Have you ever attended a job training or professional development seminar, only to return to work and find yourself totally buried again? (If you don't say yes, I've got my suspicions about you.) That's very much the case for Mali Rising's dedicated teachers -- although they long for additional training, when the finally receive it they'll come home to a classroom full of as many as 100 teenagers...and that can make sticking to new ideas and practices hard. That's why we're adding something new to to keep the lessons from our annual teacher trainings alive in the classroom...