By Adama Kone, Teacher Project Coordinator
When it rains, it pours. This old saying is especially true in Mali, and it presents a special challenge to children walking to school. It is common for many kids in rural areas in Mali to walk several miles to school and some children may walk four to five miles each way. The time and energy required each day is one of the most common reasons students drop out of school, especially when it comes to girls. This is why building schools is a core part of our education work — by bringing the school closer to the kids, we can make a big difference!
This is never more true than during the rainy season. In the picture below, you see the road to one of the Mali Rising partner villages, Nieguekoro, which is home to Ross and Marilou Moser Middle School. This scene is typical during the rainy season.
Mali usually has rainfalls from June through September, which has pros and cons depending on activities. Good rainfalls are great for famers since they allow them to have good crops and be saved from starvation. However, the rainy seasons make travels from one village to another so hard as all the dirt roads turn to sticky mud.
Usually, the Mali school year avoids the rainy season, with classes running from October until early June. But because of the worldwide pandemic this year, the Mali government closed the schools for months and the 20/21 school year did not begin until January. Classes will now run until August. Because of this schedule, kids will have to study during the rainy season and some students will have to go to school walking through muddy dirt roads like this one.
Because they have their own village school, the children from Nieguekoro are saved those muddy trips. However, children who come from neighboring villages are not so lucky. This road gets incredibly muddy whenever it rains heavily and children who are from surrounding villages can barely walk or ride bicycles in mud to school. Unfortunately, this means many of them come very late to school and some will likely end up dropping out in a long run. The children from Nieguekoro do not have to worry about walking in mud to school since they have Ross and Marilou Moser Middle School in their own village.
The mud area you see in this photo is right next to a village called Digoto, where there is no middle school. The kids as well as parents complain a lot about the road status in the rainy season. Children spend hours getting to middle school from Digato because of the road. While walking or riding, children from Digato slipper or skid in mud and fall sometimes.
This is the sad reality for so many kids in Mali. This is why building schools is still so important — every school we build gives hundreds of children a better chance to get the education they deserve.
