By Hindaty Traore, Girls’ Project Manager

It’s a hard slog for a girl in Mali to get through the school year. That’s why at the end of each year the Girls’ Project celebrates girls’ achievements with our girls and their entire villages! These Feasts (as we call them) are fun, but also are a great way to engage parents and the whole community in a discussion about the importance of girls’ education.

Each end-of-year party is an opportunity to reward the girls for the good work they have done throughout the school year. It is also an opportunity to insist that parents become more involved in the education of their children. During this celebration, we give gifts to the highest scoring girls of the year and those who won the Mali Rising Reading Contests. We give these awards in front of everyone from the village as a way to encourage other girls to join the school, to encourage the winners in front of their parents, and also to encourage the other girls to study well.

The whole village gathers under the big trees of the school -- men, women, children and even those who are not yet enrolled in school to take part in the feast. During this day dedicated to the education of girls, we bring in a DJ with a sound system to animate the day. The girls of the Girls’ Project are dressed in their most beautiful Malian fabrics and they dance until they are exhausted.

We also take advantage of this ceremony to educate parents and children through sketches, songs and poetry. The sketches, poems, and songs during the Feast are all about raising awareness of girl's education -- especially the sensitive topic of early marriage. In Mali, there are things that the girls could not tell their parents directly so we take the opportunity to spread the messages to parents. This has been very beneficial because many parents have learned things that they did not know or did not want to take into account.

For example, Mrs. Sangaré, a mother of students at our Little Heroes Academy I, told us that previously her goal for her daughter was for the girl to be married before the other girls in the village. Mrs.  Sangaré said she she did not know that school could change her daughter’s life for the better in the future. But Mrs. Sangaré said that through the little sketch at the Feast, she now understood that it was necessary to compete in studies not in marriage! She was moved by the sketch, which showed that those who dropped out of school to get married were still in poverty while those who continued became important people and they were able to have a good husband (I will explain how the sketches went in my next blog post).

Mrs. Sangaré  said, “I would give more time to my daughters Bintou and Salimata so that they learn their lessons and so that they cannot only receive a gift in front of everyone which will be a source of pride for me but also that they succeed for their own good, of the family and that of the community.”

During the Feasts, we also do not forget the children of the primary school and the children who are not yet registered because it is at this time in their school life that they must realize the importance of school and understand that school is the key to a better life. That's why we play a game with the younger children where we tie a scarf over the eyes of the children and then put presents on the ground for them to try to find. The person who finds the item wins the gift.

The children struggle hard had a lot to find the presents, but they don't want to give up. The meaning of this game simply is that despite the difficulties, you should never give up what you want in life. A little boy who is in 3rd grade in Nieguenkoro, wanted the gift so much that he was swimming on the ground as if he were in water! It was very fun.

Everyone celebrated the day in their own way -- the mothers of students, the teachers, the school management committee as well as the employees of the Mali Rising Foundation. I even danced to show my joy in favor of girls' education!

These Feasts are very important for the achievement of the objective of the Girls’ Project. The Feasts inspire the parents to enroll their girls in school and feel pride at their achievements. The Feasts also inspire younger girls to stick with school so they can join the Girls’ Project in middle school. And, of course, it is wonderful to celebrate the Girls’ Project girls themselves and give them a day in the spotlight!