girls project

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.

One Girl Leader Steps Into Her Power

As part of our Girls Project, after three years of work in a village, we train local Girl Leaders to take over leadership of the Project. This allows us to offer leadership training and real-world experience to some amazing young women and to make the Project more sustainable by making the leadership more local. Girl Leaders serve for one year, and we offer them three multi-day trainings throughout their year of service. In this blog post, Hindaty tells the story of one Girl Leader as she attended her second training with us.

We Need Both Girls & Boys To Change the World

What do the students themselves think about their education and the education of girls in particular? For a long time Malian children had no idea of the importance of their education. Today with the advent of technology and more discussions about the subject, children are becoming aware of the importance of their education. However, gender equality in education is a subject that still needs more discussion in our villages. Not everyone is convinced that both boys and girls have the right to an education. As part of the Girls Project, I helped lead a debate among the boys from the school in Tamala around the topic of girls' education.

Helping Girls Find the Space & Quiet to Learn

The Girls Project focuses on enrolling more girls in school, but it also aims to help those girls succeed once they are in the classroom. To help our girls, we organize regular study meetings. This allows girls to learn techniques to better understand their lessons, with a particular focus on what the girls identify as the difficult parts of the subjects. The Study Groups are new for the Girls Project this year. It is in the spirit of creativity that we introduced them into our activities, after finding that the girls have deficiencies in learning their lessons when trying to study after class.

Girls Groups Meet Under the Mango Trees

By Hindaty Traore, Girls Project Manager

In October, I was very happy to finally head back to the villages to meet with the girls from the Girls' Project after a long time because of the pandemic. Although I stayed in touch with the girls via the phone and radio, nothing is as much fun and as satisfying as laughing in person with the girls!

The meetings with our girls will be different this year because of the pandemic. To continue to do our activities safely with the girls, instead of meeting in the classrooms we spread out mats under a tree in the schoolyard. Each of the girls wears her mask, provided by Mali Rising. Everyone must disinfect their hands before the meeting and were made with gestures, rather than hugs. 

Although I wondered how the rules would work, the girls sat down respecting the distancing measures and were just happy to be together. They were enthusiastic because it is a first time for them to return to our discussions and fun. 

In fact, I noticed they were more relaxed, participatory, and focused as we met under the trees. One girl from Zambougou, Doussouba Samaké , said she loves meeting outside - she feels is in a palace on her mat under the trees and she is the queen so it feels good to take outdoor lessons. She wishes that all subjects could be taught like this! She said she would be the top of the class if she could learn under the trees (laughs).

Mali Rising Volunteer Nancy Did It (and So Can You)!

Do you ever think “I wish I had the time to volunteer” or “I would love to do that, but I don’t think I can anymore”? Volunteer Nancy wants to tell you “Do what you can when you can. Every little bit helps.” I recently spoke with Nancy about her week-long experience volunteering for Mali Rising. While visiting family in Salt Lake City in March…

Girls Helping Girls: Peers Make the Difference!

Girl Leaders are young women from our partner villages who are trained by Mali Rising to take over the activities of the Girl Project in our three original Girls Project villages. These young women run the Girls Groups, and serve as role models to our girls because they are each continuing their own education in high school or vocational classes. This is a story of one new Girl Leaders and how her peers helped her overcome her fears…

Keeping Girls in School During Covid-19: A Video Chat

By Merritt Frey, Executive Director

Join us on Sunday, October 25 to learn about our work to get girls into school and keep them there, even during COVID-19 times. Hindaty Traore will share stories from her work on the theme of “Keeping Girls In School in Mali During the COVID-19 Pandemic” and answer your questions about the work.

This informal discussion will cover the challenges of keeping girls in Mali safe and in school during the COVID-19 pandemic, and how Hindaty is leading our strategies to keep them there. We promise beautiful photos, engaging stories, and inspiring details about how your support makes a difference in Mali. We’ll devote plenty of time to answering your questions too — feel free to ask about Mali culture, programming, Hindaty’s stories from the field or anything you are curious about.

In addition, we will share a few ways you can get more involved as a volunteer.

RSVP for the video link call here. We use Zoom, which most of you are familiar with by now!

Note that the call is Sunday, October 25 at Noon pacific/1 pm mountain/2pm central/3 pm eastern. The chat will last an about hour, but we will stay on the line a longer if you all have many questions.

hindaty (2).jpg

Keeping Girls Both Safe From Covid & Learning

This year I can't wait to resume our twice monthly meetings with the girls in our Girls Project villages! These meetings will be a little different because of COVID-19, but in some ways I think they may be even better. For more health protection, we will hold these meetings under the trees in the school yards, rather than in the classrooms…

Even Flood Waters Can't Stop Our Girls Project

Because of the school closings with COVID-19, this year’s reopening of schools coincides with the rainy season. Usually, schools in Mali are closed from June through September so that most children do not have to navigate floodwaters and mud to get to school. As with everything else, 2020 has been quite different with students called back to school in the midst of the rains.