During the 16/17 school year, we launched our pilot Girls Project in three of our partner villages: Beneko, Simidji, and Kolimba. Our pilot goals are: to improve recruitment of girls to middle school, to retain more girls in school throughout middle school, and to make sure the girls see real results in terms of school success and life skills. We are delighted to share some great news from the Project's first year...
Checking In With Our Girls Before Summer
School is out for summer in Mali! While that means less homework for our students, in means more for staff here at Mali Rising. In particular: math homework. Why? Well, over the summer is when we do the majority of our evaluation for the year. We review all kinds of measures and metrics designed to better understand what's working in our schools and what isn't. From enrollment to test scores, we dig through it all. Currently, I'm working with a lot of wonderful information collected by our Girls Project Coordinator, Hindaty, to evaluate the first year of the Project. Because this is a new project, evaluation is particularly important...
Aminata's School Success Means a Better Future for Her Baby Boy
Utah Girl Scouts Supporting Mali's Girl Students
Back in April, I had the pleasure of meeting with a great Girl Scout troop here in Salt Lake City. We talked about girls' education in Mali -- the challenges and the benefits. The Scouts wrote letters of encouragement to girl students participating in Mali Rising's Girls Project in the tiny village of Kolimba. The basic goal? To simply let our girls know that as they struggled to get to school each day, someone far away was rooting for them. I think the photos I received from the letter delivery in Kolimba speak to how thoroughly the Girls Scouts achieved their goal! Check them out...
News From Our Girls on International Women's Day
Today is International Women's Day, but here at Mali Rising every day is girls' day. Why is that? Because we are very excited to be deeply engaged in the first year of our pilot Girls Project. Led by our intrepid Girls Project Coordinator, Hindaty, the Girls Project launched in autumn 2016 and is now going full steam ahead. Why is Hindaty's work so important?
Catching Up With Mali Rising's Girls Project
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!
