girl project

Building Hope: A New School Takes Shape in Heremakono, Mali

Building Hope: A New School Takes Shape in Heremakono, Mali

As many of us in the United States gear up for the holiday season, there's a different kind of hustle and bustle happening in the village of Heremakono, Mali. Crews are working around the clock to build a new school that promises to change the lives of children in this rural community. And the progress? It's truly inspiring.

Construction began on November 4th, and just six weeks later, the building is already more than 70% complete! Iron bars are now in place on the roof, and by December 20th, the team was planning to install the sheets of iron. The doors and windows have arrived, and the classroom doors are already in position. Meanwhile, work on the toilets has begun, and half of the interior and exterior wall plastering has been completed including the Principal’s office.

Skits Use Humor to Broach Tough Topics

At the end of each school year, Mali Rising’s Girls’ Project organizes celebrations in each Project village. We call these celebrations Feasts and use them to bring the whole village together to learn about and celebrate girls’ education. One way that we convey awareness messages is through humorous skits. We focus these skits on sensitive subjects that girls face during their education.

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Great Girls Read Gives a Huge Lift

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In Mali, all too often we find that students who diligently attend school still cannot read. Based on my own personal observations, I would estimate that around 80% of middle school students are not able to read a sentence correctly in French and 85% of elementary students are not able read aloud a simple sentence like “My school is pretty.”

Through the Girls’ Project’s Great Girls Read campaign, I am focused on changing this dynamic for our girls. I am particularly passionate about focusing on reading with our elementary school girls, because if they can learn reading young it will set them way ahead in middle school!

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Chatting Around a Dish With the Girls' Project Girls

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As part of the Girls’ Project work, each spring we organize a session on eating and cooking healthy, local foods. This session includes preparation of a group meal with the girls. But the session is not only about food – cooking and eating together gives us a great, informal way to talk and share. While we wait for the meal to cook, we share stories around the table. Each girl tells a story that marked her, and shares her dreams and her goals. This is a very important activity that allows girls to confide and share their experiences.

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Discussing Gender Violence: Boys & Girls

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As we work to help girls succeed in school, we know a good relationship between girls and boys is very important for the success of girls. In Mali, school-based violence is a large-scale problem with harmful consequences for girls, but also for society as a whole. The violence suffered by girls affects their learning, their physical and mental health, their personality and their future. That’s why February’s theme for the Girls’ Project meetings was Stopping School-based Violence.

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Breaking Down Barriers To Girls' Enrollment

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by Hindaty Traore, Girls Project Manager

Alimatou and Sira in front of their new middle school classroom at Sue Taylor Middle School.

One of the times I feel most proud of my work in the Girls’ Project is when I can help girls who don't want to go back to school or parents who don't want to enroll their daughters in school. Talking through issues with the girls and the parents and seeing them shift to being passionate about girls’ education is just so rewarding!

As the school year began last month in Mali, one of my  first priorities was to ensure that many girls could be enrolled in the Girls’ Project partner schools. To this end, we made radio announcements and meet directly with many families.  For the most part, these strategies resulted in great enrollment numbers in the schools.

However, despite all my work I knew there were still some girls who were not yet registered for school in October. For example, in the village of Diorila, the principal of our partner school there informed us that the principal of the primary school in Léna -- one of the neighboring villages of Diorila whose pupils usually go to the middle school of Diorila -- had told him that two girls from his school were not enrolling.

I immediately went to Léna to speak to the principal and then to meet with the parents of these two girls. Each girl faced a different barrier to her continued education. The first girl, Alimatou , did not have a birth certificate and her parents thought that meant she could not attend school. The second girl, Sira, was about to be sent to Bamako to look for work to earn money for the family.

For the first family, I was able to assure them that the lack of a birth certificate was not a barrier to enrolment for Alimatou. The parents were pleasantly surprised and quite happy to enroll their daughter. With Sira’s family, the discussion was a bit tougher because the family really needed the funds Sira might earn in Bamako. However, after a discussion of the longer-term economic benefits for the family of keeping Sira in school, they too agreed to enroll their daughter.

Our intervention was able to solve the problems of both girls and they started school just one week late. Given the distance between Diorila and the village of Léna, the two girls settled in Diorila with one of their relative's acquaintances. In exchange, their parents will send sacks of rice to help the host family in Diorila.

Many girls in Mali’s rural villages see their future destroyed by a simple problem or barrier like this. One of the simplest things the Girls’ Project can do is work with families to problem solve and break down these small barriers.

Boys Explore Education as a Human Right

In Mali, girls’ education is very challenging matter especially in rural areas. Although girls are often very interested in education, many of those around them may resist the idea. A girl’s parents or even her own brothers may not be supportive of the girl’s wishes to stay in school. That’s why Mali Rising’s work to help girls’ education can’t focus only on the girls – we must reach the parents and boys as well.

Kadia's Scholarship Keeps Her Fed & Shod

Mali Rising’s Inspiration Scholars sponsors are changing lives. By donating a modest scholarship, these donors help our most outstanding middle school graduates go on to vocation school or high school. The scholarships help the specific recipients of course, but the gift ripples out even farther. Other students are inspired to study hard in the hopes of a future scholarship. Parents see their earlier investment in education paying off and enroll young siblings. And Scholars return to their home villages with skills and an income that helps their whole family. We recently caught up with one Inspiration Scholar, Kadia Traore.

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Girls Explore the Lives of Career Women

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As part of exposing our Girls Project girls to the diverse career opportunities an education girl can dream of, we recently interviewed some career women in their workplace and videoed the interviews. In the past, we brought these career women to the villages to meet the girls directly but because of the pandemic we took a questionnaire from the girls to the career women.

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