Banachako Kante is a 9th grader at Christiana Norris Middle School in the rural village of Banko. Banachako has a practical plan for her future, rooted in education and informed by an understanding of the job market that reflects a wisdom well beyond her 14 years.
Top Academic Girls Visit the National Museum!
Our Girls’ Project does lots of serious work with the girls about leadership, study skills, and more. But occasionally, we need to celebrate! In April, we did just that – we celebrated our academically high-achieving girls by taking them on a field trip to the capitol city of Bamako. The girls visited the National Museum and the National Zoo. In this blog post, I want to share some fun from the museum portion of the trip.
An Alumnus Heads to Law School
You never know what gifts a young student will find in a classroom They may find a love of literature or a passion for science. They may discover a vision of becoming a doctor, or a dream of being a famous artist. For Hamidou Marico, a graduate of Mali Rising’s Lareen Mellor Middle School, he found a love of the law and of his country.
Teachers Can Teach Teachers Best!
This school year, we will host 18 Teacher Peer Meetings, where we bring together teachers to help each improve their skills. With so much work going into organizing these meetings, I always want to check in the teachers to make sure they are useful for their work. At a recent peer meeting, I had a great conversation with one teacher who was brand new to the idea of Peer Meetings – Abdoulaye Doumbia.
How Two Moms Use the Mothers' Loan Fund
By Hindaty Traore, Girls’ Project Manager
This month, I checked in with a group of mothers who are using their entrepreneurial skills to make sure their daughters can attend middle school and build better lives for themselves.
The Cliff and Nita Bailey School in the little village of Beneko is one of the first schools where Mali Rising’s Girls’ Project was piloted. As part of the Project, the mothers of the village received a seed grant to set up what we call a Mothers’ Loan Fund. This Fund loans money to mothers for small businesses. The interest on those loans is pooled to fund school fees for the village girls in perpetuity.
Each village’s Mothers’ Loan Fund is run by the women of the village, and so sets up its own rules and systems. Given the large number of women in Beneko, the loans are distributed every 6 months. Each woman who receives a loan receives 5,000 FCFA. After six months each woman must bring 5000 FCFA plus interest -- which is 1000 FCFA.
Each woman uses her money differently to have her own benefit and interest after every six months. I wanted to share the stories of two women – Bintou Samake and Deniba Bagayoko.
Bintou Samake’s loan
Bintou Samaké is the mother of 7 children, 5 of whom are currently in the middle school of Beneko. She was one of the beneficiaries of the first distribution from Beneko's Mothers’ Loan Fund.
When she received her loan, Bintou went by bike to get oranges from Famana, a village 10km from Beneko, to come back and sell them in Beneko. After selling her oranges she obtained 2500 FCFA as a profit. In six months, she was able to have a personal benefit of 30,000 FCFA. After six months, she returned the 5000 FCFA plus the interest of 1000 FCFA in the fund. “I sell oranges because a lot of people don't sell those here. That's why the profit is a bit high compared to other businesses in the village,” says Bintou.
Before the arrival of the project, Bintou found it difficult to pay the school fees of her five children. She saw her children expelled from school because of non-payment of school fees. She and her husband are farmers so they do not have enough resources. When the Girls’ Project Mothers’ Loan Fund came, the project paid for all the girls' school fees, which reduced her expenses. Bintou likes her side business, but she continues to farm and be a housewife.
Deniba Bagayoko’s loan
Deniba buys condiments such as tomatoes, onions, garlic, and concentrated tomatoes to sell in the village. The profit is not huge but it allows her to repay the money and interest from the Fund and still to have some extra money to set aside aside.
She also often buys cereals such as millet and maize when it is cheaper and keeps them until the price of these cereals is high, then she sells them. “The money that Mali Rising gave us helped me a lot, especially to pay the school fees for the girls because it is the women who pay the school fees for the girls but the women do not have the means to pay that. My daughter is married and her husband's parents do not want to pay her school fees. But thanks to the interest of the fund, she continues her studies,” exlplains Deniba.
Deniba Bagayoko’s last daughter in grade 9. Her daughter loves school but has failed the DEF graduation exam twice. Her daughter is married in another village 3 km from Beneko, and she has a 1-year-old child. Deniba says tat housework and the maintenance of the child prevent her from studying well.
However, Deniba takes care of her daughter’s child so that she can go to school. The daughter’s husband wants her to study but she is in the big family the household chores are enormous, so it is not at all easy. According to Deniba if there was no interest in the fund to pay her daughter's school fees, her studies would be finished because her in-laws refuse to pay. But because she utilized the Mothers’ Loan Fund through Mali Rising, they have not had difficulty paying school fees for the girls.
The women of Benkeo welcome the Mothers’ Loan Fund because it allows them to keep their daughters in school without fear of expulsion. We love to see the Funds succeed because there are just so many benefits – more girls in school, mothers that feel empowered to protect their daughters, and even a little “extra” money for the family home.
The View From Fourth Grade
Welcoming Andrea Lewis to our Board
Volunteers make an organization like Mali Rising work, and no volunteers are more vital that the board of directors. In March, a new board member joined Mali Rising — Andrea Lewis. Andrea jumped in to our work feet first, and we are incredibly excited to have us join us. As a long-timer producer at CNN, Andrea brings a great background in communications and story-telling to Mali Rising. I asked her to share her responses to a few questions to help our supporters get to know her as she takes on leadership at Mali Rising…
Graduated Girls Serve as Inspiring Ambassadors
A group of girl graduates from our Denik Middle School recently returned to their home village to inspire girls currently attending the school to study hard, all under the guise of a friendly soccer match. Meet two of the inspiring graduates who attended and inspired our Girls’ Project participants to study hard and dream big.
One Teacher Learns, to Help Him Better Teach
We recently hosted an English Teacher Peer Meting gathering teachers from six of our partner schools. Mali Rising’s Teacher Peer Meetings allow teachers to gather and help each other build their skills. In Mali, teachers rarely come together and have discussions on how improve their own teaching skills, all the six teachers who attended this recent meeting were very excited to join together. Mr. Sio Coulibaly was one of the participating teachers. He was particularly helpful to his peers, peppering them with questions and or providing helpful answers.
Welcome Board Member Cole Smith
I’ve been remiss in welcoming a member to our board of directors — Cole Smith. Cole actually joined the board more than a year ago, and has quickly become a central part of our work. In fact, in January Cole was elected as Mali Rising’s Treasurer. We are grateful to have someone with Cole’s skills and eye for detail in this key role. Although we are late, we want to take a minute to have our supporters get to know Cole. I asked Cole a few questions about his board service and background. Read on for more from Cole…
