Although girls in Mali want to stay in school, it is really challenging for them to stay there. There are many obstacles to girl’s education, such as early marriage, forced marriage, long distances to walk to school, rapes, and sexual abuse. This is especially true in rural areas. As a result, many girls drop out of school in Mali each year. This isn’t a failure of the girls, but instead a failure of the whole community — everyone should be involved in helping girls be educated. Our Girls Project works to make sure parents are invested in their daughters’ education, but we also work with the boys in our schools to make sure they are allies to their girl peers.
Celebrating our Girl Leaders!
By Hindaty Traore, Girls Project Manager
Two years ago, we began a new piece of our Girls Project work. After three intense years of work in our initial three Project villages, we trained local young women to return to their village to shepherd the villages’ Girls Group meetings and serve as role models for young girls in the village.
Each year, we carefully select two young women as Girl Leaders in each village. We provided extensive training and support for the Girl Leaders throughout their year of service, along with a stipend. The training of Girl Leaders has enabled them to become aware of their limitations, to mobilize their own resources, and to have confidence in each other.
All of the Girl Leaders had a story before the training. Some girls felt unable to go stand in front of a crowd and convince other girls to continue school, some were shaking, some were crying when they tried to stand in front of a class, and others were not confident in themselves. However, in early April this year’s Girl Leaders left their last training of the year with strong skills and positivity.
This training was an opportunity for the girls to train in teamwork, to raise awareness, to bring out hidden assets. The skills they have learned helped the Girl Leaders serve our Girls Groups, but have also helped them in their larger lives. For example, according to the Girl Leaders their parents treat them differently because they trust the young women more.
A job well done deserves an excellent reward. To salute the wonderful work they have done throughout the school year, Mali Rising awarded the Girl Leaders certificates of recognition. For this presentation of certificates, we met at the Bamako National Park. Half of the Girl Leaders had never been to the park before, so the trip itself was part of the reward! To make the event even more powerful, we invited last school year’s Girl Leaders to attend too – creating a powerful group of young women to celebrate together!
Looking back over the last two years, the 11 Girl Leaders (we have 6 Girl Leaders each year, but one women returned to repeat her service this year) we trained to return to their respective villages to support their younger peers in middle school carried out their tasks successfully. For 9 months the Girl Leaders went to the villages to meet with the girls and help them stay in school and succeed. Girl Leaders are a kind of human transmission of skills, courage, motivation, and role modeling to all girls in their village.
The 11 girls trained in the last two years have become good examples in the village. If fact, there are some girls who dream of being like the Girl Leaders now. The younger girls who are in the village want to take over the role of Girl Leaders someday so they can come home and educate their little sisters in turn!
The benefit of building the leadership capacities of these girls is threefold: it defines the heroines and role models for other young girls, it empowers and makes the Girl Leaders themselves stronger, and it challenges outdated community norms. We love our Girl Leaders!
Check out the photos on this page to see our Girl Leaders as they receive their certificates from me, Hindaty, and explore the National Park together.
Become a Mali Rising Volunteer Today!
I don’t know about you, but more and more these days I’m looking for ways to be of service and feel connected to the larger world. With more time at home and alone, maybe it has made me value our interconnectedness a bit more….or maybe after a year at home I just need something DIFFERENT to do with my evenings! Do you feel that way?
Great Girls Read Makes Learning Fun...With Cake
Celebrating International Women's Day with the Girls Project
March 8, 2021 was International Women’s Day. At Mali Rising, we celebrated this special day in our own way. How? By cheering for our girls as they played their hearts out on a dusty soccer field. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, the girls cannot currently travel between schools to play. However, we set up match between the 7th and 8th grade girls and the 9th grade girls at Denik Middle School in Zambougou.
Kadidatou Returns to School After a New Baby
Usually in Mali, once a girl gets married or becomes pregnant, her education ends. (This is a big problem, because 15% of girls are married by 15 and 50% are married by 18.) A pregnant girl who goes to school risks being teased by other students and being accused of being a bad influence. Yet every year, thousands of girls get pregnant in Mali when they should be learning history, algebra and life skills at school. Adolescent girls who have teenage pregnancies face many social and financial barriers that hinder their pursuit of formal education. Kadidiatou is a married 18 year old and is in the 9th grade at Mali Rising’s Frances W. Burton Middle School in Tamala. When we discovered that she was pregnant, we doubled our awareness campaign with her and of her husband's family until her delivery.
A Backpack Full of Supplies & Motivation!
During the start of this 2020-2021 school year, school kits were distributed to the top 15 girl students in the the five partner schools (Diorila, N'tentou, Sebela, Tamala and Zambougou) where the Girls Project is active. These girls received the kits as a reward for their good school work, which motivates all the girls to work hard in class! Below is a the story from one of our best girls at the Denik Middle School in Zambougou. She is the top of her class — beating out both boys and girls for the honor.
Show Some Love! Volunteer...
You may not be that into all the hearts and flowers this month, but there’s a better way to show your love — through volunteering! This month, Mali Rising is offering two options to help spread the love through our volunteer project and we hope you’ll join in the fun. Each short online event — we call these Volunteer Evenings — will focus on one, specific volunteer opportunity. We will provide all the information you need to get started and answer any questions you may have.
Volunteer Evenings: Get Briefed on Two Ways to Make a Difference
Last night we had a fun Volunteer Orientation with a great group of Mali Rising supporters. It was a whirlwind tour of nine of our current volunteer opportunities, with information about how to learn more. If you missed the session but are interested in learning more about the options and/or future volunteer options, please fill out this quick Volunteer Interest Form or sign up for one of our online February Volunteer Evenings.
Our Powerful Girls Apply Their Power to Reading!
Reading is the heart of knowledge, yet many children in Mali cannot read. In fact, many students fail school all together because, when you do not know how to read the lesson, you cannot learn the lesson nor understand its meaning. This is a problem we must address! As Mali’s new school year begins this month, I am helping our Girls’ Project girls improve their reading ability through our study sessions.
