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...
Ibrahim Is The Intern For The Job
Mandie's Internship Changed Girls' Lives for the Better
Welcome Our New Communications Intern, Marissa
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...
Essay Contest Winners Announced!
Today Mali Rising Foundation announced the three top winners in our national Make the Case for Caring Essay Contest. This year's essay topic was: Why should an average person in the United States invest in educating children in a far-off country like Mali...what is in it for us? The top three winners are....
Proverbs From Mali...They Travel Well
This weekend I dug through some old files, looking for something I suddenly needed again. I found what I needed, but only after getting very distracted by something else. That something else was a small project an intern last year -- Salifou -- created. Salifou is a student here in the U.S., but he is from Mali. He gathered and shared some Malian proverbs for an event we were planning. I dusted the project off for today's blog because I'm betting you'll find them as much fun as I do.
What's In a Name?
It’s halfway through my Malian trip and I found myself in the rural village of Lofine. Mali Rising’s team is tucked away under the shade of a huge gnarled tree for the opening of a new school. The ceremony is chaotic, but beautiful. There were traditional dances intertwined through speeches of the village dignitaries as well as the board members of Mali Rising.I slowly lost interest during the painstaking translations from English to Bambara and reverted to studying the faces of those in the large crowd circled around us.
