Mali Rising teachers work hard to help students and change lives. In Mali’s rural schools, teachers face many challenges such as the lack of electricity, limited teaching tools, poor housing and classrooms, a large number of students in one classroom (often 100 and up!), and more. In spite of all these challenges, many teachers just enjoy helping kids and have great relationships with parents and village leaders. Mali Rising has established annual awards to recognize this dedication and hard work. This year we honored Mr. Mallé Brehima with the Most Helpful Teacher Award.
U.S. Teachers: Can You Donate an Hour of Your Time?
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:
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!
When Mud Stands Between You & Your Education
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.
