Are you a skilled DIYer? What if you had to do the repairs at your kid’s school….would your skills hold up for that DIY job? Maybe not, but if you had a little help maybe you could feel good about contributing back to the school. That’s what our school maintenance trainings do for parents on our partner schools’ School Management Committeees.
Do Good Over Holiday Break!
Want to give back over this holiday season? We have the easiest-entry project ever for you - write notes of encouragement to our students in Mali! We provide instructions and you write short notes (and add photos, stickers, etc. if you like), scan the notes and send them to us. Learn more and sign up here.
Marketing, Public Relations, Story-Telling Skills Needed
Tenetie Lights Up a New Career
Alumni Network Makes A School Shine
By Ousmane Coulibaly, Operations Coordinator
On a Friday this November, the Alumni Network of Seguessona’s Jade & Gabe Mellor Middle School organized a maintenance day at their school. This network is made up of young men and women who graduated from the school. While some of them are already working in companies and organizations, others are still in high school and in vocational schools and universities.
With the support of Mali Rising Foundation, more than thirty former highly motivated students, h came to school with brooms, wheelbarrows rakes, soap and other small materials. In addition, some former student volunteers rented a wheelbarrow, bought buckets, and also rented a three-wheeled motorcycle as support equipment during the cleanup day. Some volunteer students from 7th, 8th and 9th grades also came to join the elders to help them clean up the school.
Proud and happy Alumni Network volunteers take a break from making their school shine!
They were well organized in different groups. While the girls and women swept with brooms, the men carried the trash away with wheelbarrows. Together they managed to sweep the whole schoolyard, the inside of the classrooms and they also cleaned all the latrines.
They then chased away all the birds that were in the principal's office. The principal's office was in bad shape because of the birds' nests and poop. The Principal of the school, Mr. Bakary Koné, was also present and was very satisfied with the work done by the alumni.
Principal Koné said, "I am very happy and satisfied with this work. These young people cleaned the school very well today. They also washed my office, and all the latrines. Otherwise, the latrines in the school were unusable. Nobody liked to use them because of the waste. But now all the latrines are operational. Also, they managed to chase away all the birds and clean their poop.”
This Alumni Network is one of two Networks Mali Rising has launched this year to test the idea. Our hope is that the alumni groups can grow and take concrete actions such as inspiring students to stay in school or maintaining their school in the future for themselves. If these first two Networks are successful, we hope to grow the idea to other schools.
Textbooks Are Incredibly Useful To Teachers!
Without teachers and textbooks, is a school really a school? It certainly isn’t an easy place to learn without those two things. Recently, I had a chance to talk with one of our teachers – Mr. Chio Coulibaly of Nieta Kalanso Middle School in Kolimba – about what a difference textbooks have made for him and his students.
The Hope of Noumousso
A Village Steps Up for Their Girls
Now that the school year is well underway in Mali, I have been checking in with mothers involved in our Girls’ Project Mothers Loan Funds. These funds use revolving credit to help mothers establish small businesses, and the interest is used to pay girls’ school fees. While visiting with the mothers in Tamala, they told me the story of Sitan Samake as an example of the huge changes the Girls’ Project has created in their village.
Alumni Networks Step Up to Help
This year, I am helping to pilot a new Mali Rising project – Alumni Networks. The goal of these networks is to foster connections between our schools’ graduates and the students attending their schools now. I recently met with Alumni Network members at our school in Sequessona – Jade & Gabe Mellor Middle School and asked them to share their thoughts about the Alumni Network experience so far.
Helping Students Who Struggle with French
We are in the second year of trying out a new tactic to help our students – assessing their French language skills so their teachers can better help them learn. The assessments are critical because poor French skills make it nearly impossible for students to learn their other subjects and they get discouraged and drop out. This year, we are doing the assessments in four partner villages, and we spoke with one participating student -- Awa Doumbia, a 7th grade student at Judge Memorial Middle School after her assessment.
