Mali Rising Alum, Zantigui, Imagines Giving Back

By Ousmane Coulibaly, Operations Coordinator

Mali Rising’s graduates leave 9th grade and scatter around the region. Although some stay in their home village, many move to a bigger town for high school or a vocation school or head to the city to find work. I recently tracked down one of our graduates who is living in Ouelessebougou, a big town that is home to a high school where he is continuing his education.

“My name is Zantigui Bagayoko. I am a former student of Mali Rising Foundation. I got my DEF [certification that he passed the national graduation exam] in 2015 from the middle school Cliff and Nita Bailey of Beneko,” he told me.

I asked Zantigui what he is doing currently and he responded, “Currently, I am pursuing my studies at the Lycée Public of Ouelessebougou and I am in the 12 grade and I focus on Social Sciences.”

We also discussed Zantigui’s plans for his future. He shared his big vision for his life, “I have a lot of aspirations and dreams in life. I would like to study and become a customs officer. I really like this job. I would like to success in life, because I would like to contribute to the development of my community. When I will get means, I would like to bring clean drinking water to our village, and build paved roads, schools, and health centers. I would also like to increase the number of teachers, because there is a lack of teachers in our school in the village.”

Zantigui’s vision for his future is clear and after talking with him I believe he will achieve his goals. I love how he plans to give back to his village as well — this is why education is so important to Mali’s future!

Speech Up! Winners Announced

By Merritt Frey, Executive Director

If you want to feel better about the state of the world, talk with a young person. Seriously, it is amazing to hear what those coming up are doing and how the see the world. That’s why we love our Speech Up! Video Contest, which asked high school students to share how they would tackle the challenge of bringing education to all. Today, we’re happy to announce our top three winners and share links to their great video speeches:

• First place: Akshaya Annampedu, Plano, Texas

• Second place: Nandira Mahmud, Seattle, Washington

• Third place: Kashvi Ramani, Ashburn, Virginia

Our first place winner, Akshaya.

Akshaya Annampedu, our first place winner, is a high school student passionate about service, writing, music, and bridging together people and solutions for a better and more wholesome society. She is especially excited to receive recognition for her Speech Up presentation about how to solve the United Nations’ education equity goal, because she was always a firm believer in the equality of resources for all people. She regularly works towards this mission through her roles in the Underrepresented Students’ Society, her school’s Pencils of Promise, her magazine for underserved students around the world, and her service-oriented internship with Mission Possible Kids. She looks forward to continuing giving back to others throughout college and beyond. 

Nandira, our second place winner, with her beautiful, giant cat.

When we asked Akshaya about her thinking process as she started to put together her speech, she said “I wanted to really get to the root of it, and be really honest about the problem. These issues are really a problem everywhere.” We think she did a great job of getting to the root of the issue!

Our second place winner, Nandira, lives in Seattle. When asked what she does when she is not designing a plan to bring education to the world, Nandira said, “I enjoy hanging out with my cat, reading, listening to music, and cooking. I love learning about food and agriculture science and I hope to one day have my own farm.” 

In third place for the 2021 Speech Up! Video Contest, we have Kashvi.

And our third place video was submitted by Kashvi. Kashvi is a freshman at Rock Ridge High School and the Academies of Loudoun, Virginia. She loves to write - songs, stories, scripts, memoirs, and poems - as well as act, play golf, travel, read, and execute public speaking. She is currently a member of DECA, taking entrepreneurship at her magnet high school, and placed first in the state in the role play category. In addition, she is passionate about diversity, education, and inclusion.

Thank you to all the great students who shared their thoughts and ideas!

Working Together for a New School in Banko

By Merritt Frey, Executive Director, with Alou Doumbia, Construction Manager

We are overjoyed that the new middle school for the children of Banko — Christiana Norris Middle School — is now open in Mali and serving kids. Alas, for now we cannot do the typical ceremonial opening with the Norris Family, who generously sponsored the school. Instead, our staff brought a video from the Norris Family to share with the students and interviewed students, staff, and parents about the new school. Over this week, I’ll be sharing stories and interviews from that trip. Today we hear from the president of Banko’s primary school committee [we will hear from the middle school president later], a group of parents and elders who manage the school.

My name is Oumar Doumbia, president of the primary school’s school committees in the village of Banko school. We now have two school management committees thanks to the opening of Christiana Norris Middle School here.

As part of my presidential duties, the village chief and I have been to neighboring villages asking them to send their students to the new middle school. Sending students from other villages to our new middle school will make it easier for children to be educated, because so many of our neighboring villages suffer the same problem we used to suffer – schools too far from home for our students to attend. There were many  students out of school or unable to continue their studies due to lack of food and the regular breakdown of their bikes on the trip to school. Because of the distance the children traveled, students from some families actually left our village, and many did not return.

The CAP of Bougouni [the local unit of the Ministry of Education] and the town hall supported us. City hall officials came to meet us to identify our concerns and the challenges we faced in opening a school. Once we had a school, the officials helped advocate for teachers to be assigned to our school. The CAP approved this request and sent us two teachers. This meant the village and the school committee also had to recruit two other teachers, which has been successfully completed.

I especially salute you and the Americans who helped us achieve our goal of building a middle school in Banko. I want this partnership to continue so that this school project progresses. As many children as possible in Banko must be able to access higher education. The parents of the students and we are all at the same level of joy in this project because the additional expenses for the children to reach school, the cost of food, the repair of the bikes, the energy and the journey time are all reduced. I salute the Norris family’s effort to make the school possible.

I ask students to take their studies seriously. I call on parents of students to make sure students attend school regularly. Parents must do everything they can to ensure that children can do well in school because happiness comes. We are very happy that our school is functional because we did not know that it could be done – but now we know everything is possible when we work together!