By Merritt Frey, Executive Director

We are overjoyed that the new middle school for the children of Banko — Christiana Norris Middle School — is now open in Mali and serving kids. Alas, for now we cannot do the typical ceremonial opening with the Norris Family, who generously sponsored the school. Instead, our staff brought a video from the Norris Family to share with the students and interviewed students, staff, and parents about the new school. Over this month, we have been sharing stories and interviews from that trip. Today, we are simply introducing some of the people at the heart of this new school — the teachers.

Mali middle schools are typically home to an average of four teachers, although our schools range from 3 to 11! Because there are eight core subjects in Mali’s national curriculum, teachers must cover multiple subjects. For example, the French teacher is usually required to teach history and/or geography as well. Often the English teacher will teach art or another subject.

At Christiana Norris Middle School, there are currently four teachers, including the principal. The principal's name is Mahamadou S. Diallo, and he also teaches French — get to know Mr. Diallo in this blog post. The school’s science teacher's name is Lamine Mariko and the Math teacher is Fousseny Dia. T Ousmane Doumbia teaches English, but he was ill on the day of our visit.