By Hindaty Traore, Girls’ Project Manager

Now that the school year is well underway in Mali, I have been checking in with mothers involved in our Girls’ Project Mothers Loan Funds. These funds use revolving credit to help mothers establish small businesses, and the interest is used to pay girls’ school fees. While visiting with the mothers in Tamala, they told me the story of Sitan Samake as an example of the huge changes the Girls’ Project has created in their village.

Sitan Samake dropped out of middle school several years ago, before the Girls’ Project came to Tamala. According to the chairman of the school management committee, Sitan was a girl studying in the 8th grade in Tamala when her parents took her out of school to give her away in marriage in a nearby village. Once married, she became pregnant. After just a few months, she was abandoned by her husband, who went abroad. After the husband's departure, Sitan was forced to stay with her husband's family for 7 years. As an abandoned wife, she had to prepare food, cook, wash the dishes, work in the fields, and fetch water for a family of more than 20 people.

When the chairman of the school management committee heard Sitan's story, he rushed to see her parents to grant them permission to fetch Sitan and return to her own village where she could go back to school. According to the chairmen, thanks to the Girls’ Project in their village many girls were able to resume or continue school and he decided to take the same path. Sitan's parents really regretted having taken her out of school so they happily accepted the proposal of the chairman.

After the ordeal of her marriage, Sitan finally returned to school this year in 8th grade. She is 23 years old. Her son is now 6 years old. But Sitan was more than eager to return to school.

Sitan’s dream is to pass the graduation exam next year and then go to midwife training. Sitan says she was very motivated to continue school because she saw other girls in her village succeed through education.

"I see girls who I'm older than them succeed and I want to succeed too. I'm not ashamed to be in the same class as my little sisters. When I don't understand, I ask for help to other students because if you want to learn better you always have to ask,” explained Sitan.

“People look at me very strangely because I'm 23 and the others are between 13 and 15. But that didn't discourage me because I want to be midwife. I am jealous to see some girls in my village become teachers or midwives. I would also like to be like them to be independent and contribute to the development of my village like the other girls,” Sitan said.

Sitan isn’t alone in her dreams of turning her education into a better life. The mothers told me that thanks to the Girls’ Project at least four girls from Tamala are now midwives and work in Tamala and surrounding villages.

For example, Henriette Coulibaly, a girl who benefited from a  Mali Rising scholarship, is a nursing assistant midwife in Tamala now and she has just replaced a midwife who used to travel from a neighboring village. The village no longer wants Henriette to leave their village because she is delivering babies and helping the sick by doing infusions, injections, and more.

Another girl by the name of Dadie Samaké who did the midwife training is currently in the village of Fadiobougou to assist a doctor who shuttles between villages where there is no health center to treat people. He always takes Dadie with him and this allows Dadie to earn a salary each month. She often goes to Tamala to treat people as well and this is a source of pride for her parents.

The Girls’ Project did many helpful things in Tamala, but the very best news is that the School Management Committee has taken educating parents about the need to send their girls to school, helping young girls to return to school, paying school fees education of girls with the benefits of the Mothers Loan Fund, and more. The village has even designated a woman to talk to the girls every three months so that they do not drop out of school.

The local investment in girls’ education is the surest sign of real change in the village, so it makes me very proud. In fact, with more than 80 girls enrolled in Tamala this year, the number of girls exceeded the number of boys!