By Adama Kone, Teacher Project Coordinator

Mariam Dembelé is one of our brave female teachers in the middle school of Sue Chung Chiu Middle School in the village of Simidji. Thanks to our teacher sponsor donors, Mariam took part in our December 2019 teacher training. It was her first time at a training.

Mariam is a science teacher and she enjoys her work so much! She has 4 years of teaching experience. At 23 years old, she is the mother of 2 children. Mariam loves her job because she loves children even though she thinks they are turbulent sometimes. Working as a teacher also allows her to support her family and come across new people very often.

We asked Mariam what she though of our 2019 teacher training. She said, “It was great! I never got to participate in a training before even though I have been teaching for 4 years.” This is all too common for teachers in Mali — after teaching college teachers are sent to small villages to sink or swim all on their own!

What did Mariam learn from the training? “Many things! I didn’t use to split my students into sub-groups, but with this training, I am confident in doing it very well and being more helpful to my students. I work with all the 3 grades of my school and in my classroom, all students are equal no matter how or who they are. One of the other great things I learned is about the gender. As a woman, I really think girls need more help to be successful in school because they face so many challenges in terms of education. So, sharing this experience with us has been a great thing.”

Mariam was in Diguan, another village in the same area, before as teacher. She can already kind of tell us how different are Mali Rising schools from others through the trainings, peer meetings, Girls Project, Mothers Loan Funds, etc.

Mariam Dembelé enjoys singing alone to herself and her favorite food is Toh (a typical and common Malian food made from corn or millet powder).

Mariam feels just like everyone now about the outbreak of COVID-19 in Mali!! During this COVID19 crisis, Mariam’s daily work plan has changed. What does she do? “I spend more time at home now and I take this time out to read more trying to improve myself. I got many documents from the teacher training that I am reading almost every day. I hope this health issue will be over soon and I will be able to get back to school and help my students as much as possible because I miss all my students and colleagues.”

We hope so too Mariam!