Mr. Touré is a Math teacher at Judge Memorial Middle School of Sankama. He is 34 years old and, according to him, married to a beautiful wife. Mr. Touré does not live with his wife in Sankama where he teaches because it is a small and remote village. He misses his wife incredibly while teaching in village. He gets to see his wife about every two months when he visits her in Bamako, the capital city of Mali, which is about 100 km from the village where he teaches. Mr. Touré has been very concerned about student health in his school since the outbreak of COVID-19. Because of his concern, he volunteered to coach the Mali Rising Health Club at Judge Memorial Middle
What Are You Doing Over Winter Break?
We Need a Few Good (Great!) Communicators
By Merritt Frey, Executive Director
Work hand-in-hand with our board to make a difference — be a Mali Rising Advisor!
Are you a skilled communicator? Maybe you have a background in advertising, or marketing, or public relations? Or maybe you’re an expert in recruiting volunteers and keeping them happy? Or you’ve got mean skills in setting up web-based outreach campaigns using social media, websites, and other online tools? If so, boy do we want to know you better!
Mali Rising has a small staff so volunteers are truly core to all of our work. Without volunteers, we would not be able to build schools, help teachers change lives inside those schools, or send kids off to higher education with scholarships.
Some of our most dedicated volunteers are our board members, but our board needs help! We are looking for two to three Mali Rising Advisors to help our board tackle our 2021 communication goals, without the Advisors having to sign on for the full workload of board service (although Advisors may decide they want to consider board service later!)
These Advisors will work with our External Affairs Committee board members to tackle our 2021 priorities. These include:
Dramatically expanding our Volunteer Project to engage more volunteers in ways that will inspire them but also provide real help for our schools from afar.
Helping to design and launch a new Adopt-A-School campaign that will raise much-needed funds for each participating school while allowing supporters to connect with the work and the students.
A review of our branding and communications style, with a goal of creating an updated style guide and exciting, updated look.
In addition, staff will be working on overhauling our annual gala (which may stay virtual) and expanding our electronic community of friends and supporters.
If you think you have skills that could help us with any of these goals, we’d love to get to know you! Advisors will be asked to participate in bi-monthly zoom calls with the committee, as well as spend several hours each month working in support of a project or projects. In total, we expect Advisors will spend 4 to 8 hours a month volunteering. All work can be done virtually, so you can be based anywhere in the U.S. Interested in learning more? Contact us!
Always Learning: Building Our Schools Better
All children have the right to an education, but some children around the world still do not receive an education due to the poverty of their parents and their countries. The Malian government is unable to correct this lack, leaving millions of children without access to an education. One of the reasons I love working for Mali Rising Foundation is that we are doing our part to make a difference on this enormous problem. Since 2004, we have worked to provide children with access to safe conditions for learning. Although we have a long record of accomplishment of good school construction, we are always learning and adapting. This year, we made some quite large changes to our own construction model.
Helping Girls Find the Space & Quiet to Learn
The Girls Project focuses on enrolling more girls in school, but it also aims to help those girls succeed once they are in the classroom. To help our girls, we organize regular study meetings. This allows girls to learn techniques to better understand their lessons, with a particular focus on what the girls identify as the difficult parts of the subjects. The Study Groups are new for the Girls Project this year. It is in the spirit of creativity that we introduced them into our activities, after finding that the girls have deficiencies in learning their lessons when trying to study after class.
Calling All Teachers: Engage Your Students in Speech Up!
We know it is a hard and strange year for teachers everywhere. Here in the U.S., I know so many teachers who are working double-time — developing online engagement strategies, duplicating lessons for both in-classroom and online, and/or facing worries about COVID-19 infection in their classrooms. We see you teachers! All of this may make this a good year for teachers to consider incorporating our Speech Up! video contest into your curriculum.
Judge Memorial Middle School’s Health Club Rocks
Sata Culbaly is an 8th-grade student at Judge Memorial Middle School of Sankama. She is a smiling and a very driven girl. Sata is 14 years old and likes school very much because she gets to see her friends in school every day. Sata enjoys being in the school’s Mali Rising Health Club and teaching her classmates the best ways to wash their hands with soap. Sata says that the Health Club in Sankama is a great thing because it inspires students to adopt great habits when it comes to washing hands and greeting without handshakes…
Village Life: Where Old Men Gather
Mali is home to many traditions, especially in rural areas. Some of the traditions are disappearing in bigger towns but they live on in villages. Visiting a village in Mali allows people from other countries to learn many of these traditions, but even Malians who have lived in big towns for long time may be reminded of many traditions. For example, it is very common to see large, rustic public benches in villages while visiting.
Girls Groups Meet Under the Mango Trees
By Hindaty Traore, Girls Project Manager
In October, I was very happy to finally head back to the villages to meet with the girls from the Girls' Project after a long time because of the pandemic. Although I stayed in touch with the girls via the phone and radio, nothing is as much fun and as satisfying as laughing in person with the girls!
The meetings with our girls will be different this year because of the pandemic. To continue to do our activities safely with the girls, instead of meeting in the classrooms we spread out mats under a tree in the schoolyard. Each of the girls wears her mask, provided by Mali Rising. Everyone must disinfect their hands before the meeting and were made with gestures, rather than hugs.
Although I wondered how the rules would work, the girls sat down respecting the distancing measures and were just happy to be together. They were enthusiastic because it is a first time for them to return to our discussions and fun.
In fact, I noticed they were more relaxed, participatory, and focused as we met under the trees. One girl from Zambougou, Doussouba Samaké , said she loves meeting outside - she feels is in a palace on her mat under the trees and she is the queen so it feels good to take outdoor lessons. She wishes that all subjects could be taught like this! She said she would be the top of the class if she could learn under the trees (laughs).
Safety First at Ross and Marilou Moser Middle School
Ross and Marilou Moser Middle School has been changed by the Covid-19 pandemic just like all schools in Mali. Parents and students have been very worried about their village’s future in terms of education and health. School have been closed for months and students were concerned and depressed. When the government decided to reopen schools, the whole village was thrilled to see their kids back in school even though the pandemic was not still over. We are working to help students feel and be safe by setting up a health club so students are more aware of the virus and how to protect themselves and their families.
