By Adama Kone, Teacher Project Coordinator

Teachers in Mali are in crucial need of appropriate teaching tools. The lack of appropriate teaching tools is even worse in rural areas. In a Mali rural school, a typical classroom would only have a chalkboard, a chair, and a desk for the teacher. The students would only have desks to seat on. Sometimes, walls are decorated with instructions, inspirational sayings, and drawings.

Because basic tools such as textbooks, maps, educational diagrams, or science materials are missing from Mali classrooms, teachers are really limited in how they can prepare and deliver their lessons. But Mali Rising Foundation has long worked to provide textbooks to our classrooms, but this year we added additional tools provided in kits we loan out to schools for two weeks at a time.

We provide two types of Learning Kits to our schools – a Language Kit and a Science Kit. The Language Kit provides resources for teaching both French and English, including books, flashcards, and more. The Science Kit is packed full of scientific drawings, tools for active learning like magnifying glasses and rulers, and other tools. We also provided written instruction sheets that give the teachers multiple ideas about how they can easily incorporate the Kit tools into their lessons.

In the photo to the right, you see Djenebou Coulibaly, who is the principal of the middle school of Little Heroes Academy I in Mana. She is 30 years old and a mother of two children who she loves so much.

She has been working as principal for more than four years. In addition to being the principal, she is also an English teacher. She likes to work in Mana.

According to Ms. Coulibaly, one of the biggest challenges in Mali’s rural schools is the fact that teachers are permanently in need of adequate materials to present lessons in classroom. She says the teaching kits from Mali Rising Foundation have been a great help to her and her teachers. When Ms. Coulibaly talked to her teachers about the kits, they were all excited to use the materials, especially the biology teacher.

Ms. Coulibaly thinks that the Learning Kits make teachers’ lives much easier while teaching in classroom by saving them time to draw on chalkboard all the time. In the middle school of Little Heroes Academy I of Mana, students were very excited to learn from the biology sketches when their teacher used them.

According to the biology teacher in the middle school of Little Heroes Academy I of Mana, Abdoulaye, using one of the tools like the magnifying glass with students has been great experience because his students were all focused and excited to physically touch the glass and try to look through it. They had never seen a magnifying glass before. The principal from the middle school of Little Heroes Academy I of Mana wanted to keep the bags forever because she thought they were so useful to teachers making their work so easier and getting students focused on classes. Ms. Coulibaly cannot wait to be loaned the Mali Rising teaching kits again, because she knows the kits can improve the way teachers work with students in the long run.