By Adama Traore, Teacher Project Coordinator

Abdoulaye Coulibaly is the principal of Mindful Bunch Middle School of Kafara.  He is 33 years old and father of 3 children.

Mr. Coulibaly says many people in Karafa cannot even find words to express their feelings when it comes to talking about the importance of Mindful Bunch Middle School. Mr. Coulibaly estimates that 99% of the people in Kafara think their middle school allowed them to be closer to their kids and be able to watch over the kids and their education. Their kids have been studying in their own village and do not have to walk miles any more to get to school.

Mr. Coulibaly used to teach in Sue Chung Chiu Middle School in the village of Simidji, which is another one of the Mali Rising’s partner schools. When Mr. Coulibaly was in Simidji, he worked as a Math teacher. Mr. Coulibaly thinks that the Mindful Bunch Middle School is a blessing for him, because he was transferred there as a school principal and he likes this new job very much. According to Mr. Coulibaly, his school does not complain too much about the number of teachers in his school and they all get along well with the whole. They get together on ceremonial occasions and enjoy them well. While I visited him recently, Mr. Coulibaly introduced his new French teacher, Mr. Tolo, who just got to the school so is fresh and ready to teach!

Mr. Coulibaly is also very grateful to Mali Rising for delivering study at home workbooks for 35 7th grade students in his school recently. He told how important the project is to students during the school closure due to Covid-19 pandemic. He is thrilled that Mali Rising has been helping delivering those workbooks to keep students connected to school. He assumes that without this kind of idea his students would have forgot about their notebooks and almost everything about school since it has been so long that they have been to school. He promises to work with Mali Rising so parents and students benefit from workbook project, which is so useful to students and parents in future!

Mr. Coulibaly is very proud of the partnership with Mali Rising knowing that many other schools did not have chance and get workbooks for their students just like this. He wrapped up saying this: “Thank you, Mali Rising, Thank you, Mali Rising!”

And we say thank you to the donors who make all this work possible!