Can $10 Change The World? Why Yes!

By Hindaty Traore, Girls Project Coordinator

Enriette’s life was changed through a $10 donation…that’s all it takes for a girls’ school fees!

The Girls' Project has been a huge help for girls in the eight villages where we currently run the project. This is the story of one of our girls at Frances W. Burton Middle School in the village of Tamala — Enriette Coulibaly.

Enriette is 16 years old and was in the 9th grade this last school year. She is fatherless and lived with her mother, in a village with no middle school. Enriette’s village was a 6 kilometre walk away from our school in Tamala. Her mother couldn't afford a bicycle for Enriette to travel to Tamala's middle school.

So, her mother sent Enriette to a friend of her late husband's in Tamala. Her father's friend paid Enriette’s school fees for two years because her mother could not afford it. But last year the man told Enriette to look for someone to pay for her studies because he too could no longer pay both her school fees and those of his own children.

Enriette had no choice but to quit school to come and go work as a servant in Bamako. But when Mali Rising’s Girls Project announced that we would pay the expenses of all the girls in the middle school — with help from our generous 50 Women Campaign donors — she decided to stay in school. At first, Enriette didn’t believe it was really true that her fees would be paid because this was the year that the project started in Tamala. Last fall when we paid the first installment of her school fees Enriette realized that it was really true and she was reassured.

Now Enriette plans to pass her graduation exam and show that the support really was worth it! Enriette is a wonderful example of how the very modest investment of $10 for a girl’s school fees can change a life, forever!

Soccer Brings Hawa Back to School

By Merritt Frey, Executive Director

I am not sporty. Like, not at all sporty. But when we researched critical components for our Girls Project it was clear that sport should be part of the project. Studies show team sports can help recruit more girls into schools and that participating on a team helps keep girls enrolled — reducing drop outs. Even though I know know the studies provide good, quantitative facts, nothing beats a story to drive the point home! I recently asked Hindaty, our Girls Project Coordinator, if she had a story from one of our soccer playing girls and she shared this one:

“Hawa Touré is 14 years old and is doing 8th grade at Sue Taylor Middle School. She is a very intelligent girl. She and her mother were abandoned by her father, so she had a very hard childhood. This year she and her mother had decided that she would drop out of school to start a small business to meet their needs. She did not come to school regularly, but did come regularly to the Girls Group meetings. One day, the girls of Simidji [another Mali Rising Girls Project village] came to play against the girls in Diorila. She absolutely wanted to play but I told her no unless she attended school regularly.  Hawa accepted my proposal so I let her play. After this match, she began to take an interest in studies because she wanted at all costs to play the return match in Simidji. She had an average grade of 14. Hawa is brave now to continue studying thanks to soccer. “

I love this story, and hope you do too! Our supporters make turnarounds like Hawa’s possible for Mali Rising students. Thank you for your help! Learn more about the Girls Project.

Success in Our First Workbook Pilot

By Merritt Frey, Executive Director

A few weeks ago, I wrote about a new strategy we are piloting. This strategy is designed to help our students, who have been out of the classroom since March (and missed several earlier months due to teacher strikes) stay connected with school and practice some core language skills from home.

The idea is basic — there is no online learning option in Mali’s rural villages! Instead, we sent home workbooks with 7th and 8th grade students at Tim Gibson Middle School in Sebela. If students completed the workbook they would receive soap for their families; top scoring students would receive bags of rice to share with their family.

We are really pleased with the test run’s completion rate, with 62% of the kids returning completed workbooks. We were also pleased with the results, with the top scorers scoring 14 or 15 out of 20 points. We were less pleased with the average — 9 out of 20 points — but that just goes to show how much the students need to practice!

Perhaps more importantly, the students seemed to have fun with the workbooks and appreciated their small prizes. We are currently testing this idea in a second village, and hope to roll out an improved version in more villages in September.

We provided the workbooks to our 7th and 8th grade students because the 9th graders are currently back in school, studying for their graduation exam. Here we see the 9th graders of Sebela studiously focused on a chemistry lesson.