By Hindaty Traore, Girls’ Project Manager

Reading is fundamental to success in school, so our Girls’ Project offers special classes to make sure girls have the critical skill. We call these sessions Great Girls Read and the story of one 7th grader – Lafia K. – really illustrates the campaign’s power.

Lafia is thirteen years old and attends Sue Taylor Middle School in Diorila. At the start of the year Lafia lacked the confidence to read in front of the whole class and had difficulty reading and articulating words well.

Lafia was sure she just couldn't do as well as the other girls at school. But Lafia has been working hard in our Great Girls Read sessions since last October. I watched as Lafia began to gain confidence and enjoy reading.

Lafia told me she practices all the time with a basic reading primer Mali Rising provides to participants. Being able to practice on her own gave her a feeling of courage and determination. According to Lafia,  now when she walks through the village and sees the shop signs, she stops to try to read them. If she picks up pieces of paper from the ground she always tries to read them too.

Before Great Girls Read, Lafia thinks she would never have imagined raising her hand to volunteer to read in front of everyone.

“I was very afraid of taking on the challenge of taking the reading competition at the end of the year. Thanks to my improvement in reading I was able to enter the competition,” Lafia told me. “Even if I didn't win the competition at least I won my challenge to enter the competition and be third among the 15 girls in my class. I will do my best to win next year.”

Today, it is Lafia who now transmits reading skills to her friends in class and to her little brothers and sisters in daily life.

“When I practice reading at home, I call my three little sisters who do the third and fourth grade to repeat the words after me. They learn at the same time with me. Before the Girls’ Project arrived, I only went to school without a real goal in mind. Now I have the will to achieve my life goals. I am convinced that a girl can succeed in anything. This is why I have the ambition to become a teacher in the future,” she said.

By opting for this career choice, Lafia would like to create a greater impact in her village by addressing issues of quality education and also issues related to gender-based discrimination. Watching Lafia and others like her find their joy in reading and their dreams for the future is truly the best part of my job!