Mali Rising teachers work hard to help students and change lives. In Mali’s rural schools, teachers face many challenges such as the lack of electricity, limited teaching tools, poor housing and classrooms, a large number of students in one classroom (often 100 and up!), and more. In spite of all these challenges, many teachers just enjoy helping kids and have great relationships with parents and village leaders. Mali Rising has established annual awards to recognize this dedication and hard work. This year we honored Mr. Mallé Brehima with the Most Helpful Teacher Award.
Something as Simple as a Workbook...
Way back in the early days of the pandemic, we — like everyone else — were scrambling to find ways to keep our kids connected to school as things shut down. School closures in Mali were total…there is no online learning in our remote, rural villages! One tool we decided to test was incredibly simple, but turned out to also be incredibly engaging. That tool is a set of simple, photocopied workbooks we distributed in our villages.
New Teachers Dive In to Learning & Sharing
For the last several years, Mali Rising has hosted teacher peer meetings with many schools. These peer meetings have been very well received by our teachers, so we wanted to get our newest teachers involved as soon as possible. As a result, Christiana Norris Middle School recently joined their first peer meeting. All four of the new school’s teachers participated in the peer meeting, and they were joined by all the teachers from our Trujillo Family Middle School. One of Banko’s participating teachers was Mr. Moumoune Koné
A Chance Meeting Inspires...
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.
