By Hindaty Traore, Girls Project Coordinator

The Girls' Project has been a huge help for girls in the eight villages where we currently run the project. This is the story of one of our girls at Frances W. Burton Middle School in the village of Tamala — Enriette Coulibaly.

Enriette is 16 years old and was in the 9th grade this last school year. She is fatherless and lived with her mother, in a village with no middle school. Enriette’s village was a 6 kilometre walk away from our school in Tamala. Her mother couldn't afford a bicycle for Enriette to travel to Tamala's middle school.

So, her mother sent Enriette to a friend of her late husband's in Tamala. Her father's friend paid Enriette’s school fees for two years because her mother could not afford it. But last year the man told Enriette to look for someone to pay for her studies because he too could no longer pay both her school fees and those of his own children.

Enriette had no choice but to quit school to come and go work as a servant in Bamako. But when Mali Rising’s Girls Project announced that we would pay the expenses of all the girls in the middle school — with help from our generous 50 Women Campaign donors — she decided to stay in school. At first, Enriette didn’t believe it was really true that her fees would be paid because this was the year that the project started in Tamala. Last fall when we paid the first installment of her school fees Enriette realized that it was really true and she was reassured.

Now Enriette plans to pass her graduation exam and show that the support really was worth it! Enriette is a wonderful example of how the very modest investment of $10 for a girl’s school fees can change a life, forever!