When it rains, it pours. This old saying is especially true in Mali, and it presents a special challenge to children walking to school. It is common for many kids in rural areas in Mali to walk several miles to school and some children may walk four to five miles each way. The time and energy required each day is one of the most common reasons students drop out of school, especially when it comes to girls. This is why building schools is a core part of our education work — by bringing the school closer to the kids, we can make a big difference! This is never more true than during the rainy season. In the picture below, you see the road to one of the Mali Rising partner villages, Nieguekoro, which is home to Ross and Marilou Moser Middle School. This scene is typical during the rainy season.
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.
When Doing it Yourself Feels Good
When Mali Rising builds a new school, student desks are part of the equipment provided to the school. This is an obvious need – it is hard to make the most of a classroom if you do not have anywhere to sit! However, solving one problem can sometimes create other challenges. We have a new campaign underway to keep school desks in good shape, and I’d like to tell you about that campaign today.
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!
Volunteer Spotlight: Lawrence Behind the Scenes
We do a lot with a little here at Mali Rising, and much of that is possible because of our great volunteers. Today, I want to feature a new volunteer — Lawrence Long — who has stepped up to help us with all kinds of critical, behind-the-scenes work as our Volunteer Operations Coordinator. We are so glad to have Lawrence’s help, and hope you’ll enjoy getting to know him through a little recent Q and A!
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….
