As part of our successful Girls Project, Mali Rising sets up girls soccer teams and coordinates competitions between schools. Sports participation has been shown to increase enrollment and retention in school, which are both key goals of the Girls Project. In addition, soccer is just plain fun and helps our girls build their leadership and team skills! In this blog post, a girl from Kolimba’s team shares her experiences from a soccer game against the girls of Sebela. This match was held earlier this year, before COVID-19 shut down schools and group events like soccer matches. Fatoumata Doumbia is 15 years old and in 8th grade in Nièta Kalanso Middle School in Kolimba. She talks about their experience related to their soccer game in with girls from Tim Gibson Middle School in Sebela….
Travelogue: Day 6 -- Visiting the Ks, Kafara & Kolimba
On this Thursday morning we woke in the big city of Bamako, but immediately headed south to the “big” town of Ouelessebougou. Ouelessebougou is home to our own kind of “home-away-from-home” hotel for me, the staff, and Tim, but it was a new experience for Courtney. As hotels go, it is pretty basic — no hot water, no sheets, no towels, etc. BUT it does have a wonderful mango tree in a little courtyard that serves us quite well as an office and living room. Before making ourselves at home at the hotel though, we had to get some work done. First, we visited the village of Kafara and then we headed on the long drive to Kolimba.
Travelogue...Day 5: Soccer, soccer, and soccer...plus some work
Day 5 of our travels found us at full-strength as a team — the Mali Rising staff, Tim Gibson (Mali Rising supporter), Courtney Colter (Mali Rising board member), and two great translator — Mady & Hawa. This was a long day with visits to two schools — Little Heroes Academy II in Tanima and Tim Gibson Middle School in Sebela.
Girls Project Grows & Thrives
As announced this summer, our successful Girls Project is growing! After three years of piloting the Project in three villages, as school opened this fall we launched the Project in five new villages. This expansion has allowed us to nearly DOUBLE the young women benefiting from our intensive work. With all 8 villages, this year we will work with 362 young women to help them get in school, stay in school, and thrive.
Villages Celebrating Girls' Education & The End of the School Year
This year the Girls Project has respected the tradition it has established during the first year of the project in 2016: to bring together, after nine months of hard work by girls, parents of students, teachers, and students to pay tribute to each person for their involvement during the school year. We call this event Feast for Feedback, because it is both a celebration and a chance for the whole village to be involved with the Girls Project. So, this year in the school yard of Kolimba on a Saturday like no other, parents of students, teachers, and girls shared a day of joy dedicated to the schooling of girls.
A School Kit Brings Big Smiles, and a Chance to Learn
By Merritt Frey, Executive Director
Thanks to your support and the hard work of our staff in Mali, our new Girls Project is in full swing as the school year begins in Mali. Girls Project Coordinator Hindaty has been meeting with leaders in parents in our three pilot villages to gather input on the project and to promote girls' enrollment.
A key part of Hindaty's work currently is setting up school fee subsidies for approximately 200 girls. We hear time and again that parents struggle to pay school fees, and girls suffer for it. So, we are helping to subsidize those fees and, very importantly, working with parents in the villages to create and foster long-term economic projects that will allow parents to pay school fees themselves in the future.
A young girl in Kolimba, where our new Nieta Kalanso Middle School welcomed students back to school this week.
In addition, in one of our pilot villages -- Kolimba -- we had the pleasure of providing deserving girls with simple school kits. The kits include everything a girl needs to succeed this year -- a sturdy backpack, notebooks, pens, pencils, and more. This picture of a smiling student modeling her new school kit made a gray, rainy day here in Utah quite a bit brighter!
Although the challenges of educating girls are cultural and complex, really simple acts such as a $10 school subsidy or a backpack can make a big difference. You can help girls succeed by sponsoring such simple acts!
