When school closes down for the summer, it is a great time to rest and reflect. Just as school was wrapping up, I asked a few teachers, parents, and students to share their impression of Mali Rising’s Girls’ Project during the 23/24 school here. Here’s a sampling of their thoughts...
Life-Changing Parties? Sign Us Up!
Can a party change lives? Yes! Since the beginning of the Girls’ Project, we have arranged to celebrate girls’ education at the end of each school year. The goal is to bring the entire village together – girls, boys, parents, elders, etc. – to acknowledge the power of girls’ education and to celebrate the success of their girls. Check out how one feast changed Awa’s life forever by getting her back to school…
Helping Girls Leap From Primary to Middle School
One of the Girls’ Project goals is to have more girls graduate from middle school. To achieve that goal, we must first make sure that girls make the leap from 6th grade (primary school) to 7th grade (middle school). As part of our strategies to help girls make that leap, we have been talking to the families of the girls who were in the 6th grade and are now supposed to be enrolled in 7th grade in January 2021. These meetings are focused on trying to convince parents to keep girls in school, but also to see if there are any obstacles that would prevent girls from moving on to 7th grade. In December 2020, we talked with 18 families.
Each family had a different reason why they were considering removing their girls from school. One common issue is that families think that when a girl turns 15 she must be married. This belief makes it much more difficult to convince families to let their daughters continue in school, and perhaps into vocational training to get a job.
School Donors Make Mothers Happy
Here at Mali Rising we often feature the students who benefit from our supporters’ generosity. Of course, many other benefit from a new school and the education it brings. So in this post we share some thoughts from a mother in the village where we are currently building our 23rd school, Kafara. Here are excerpts of what Sali had to say about the arrival of a new school for her children…
