It has been 17 years since Mali Rising Foundation built our very first school — The Trujillo Family Middle School was in N'Tentou Kouroulamini. Today its graduates are out in the world and dreaming big. Let’s meet one of those alumni — Mamadou.

At Mali Rising, our Girls’ Project does a lot to get girls into school and help them succeed there – from tutoring to soccer matches to school fee subsidies. However, sometimes we are reminded that even the basic act of building a school literally opens doors to girls in search of an education. I was reminded of this recently during a discussion with a mother of one of our students.

I wanted to share some great photos from a recent Teacher Peer Meeting with teachers from two of our more remote schools. Because these teachers have a harder time connecting with some of our events, we hosted a two-day event just for them at a centralized location and it was a big success.

In Mali, girls’ education is very challenging matter especially in rural areas. Although girls are often very interested in education, many of those around them may resist the idea. A girl’s parents or even her own brothers may not be supportive of the girl’s wishes to stay in school. That’s why Mali Rising’s work to help girls’ education can’t focus only on the girls – we must reach the parents and boys as well.

Children living in extreme poverty face many obstacles to their education, but girls in this situation face even more hurdles because they are victims of inequalities and suffer discrimination throughout their educational journey. Mali Rising helps girls get over those hurdles using many strategies, including Inspiration Scholarships for our outstanding graduates. This year, eight girls from current Girls’ Project villages benefited from a scholarship. Read about two of those girls’ stories…

Encouraging and recognizing good work done is an effective way to develop a taste for learning. Indeed, reward is an extrinsic motivator that prompts the student to improve certain behaviors, providing conditions that facilitate their motivation and learning.

It is in this context that the Girls’ Project gave gifts to 15 most outstanding girl students from last school year in the five villages of Girls’ Project -- Zambougou, Sebela, Dorila, Tamala and N'Tentou. This was done both to reward the girls for their hard work and to create competition among all the girls to study hard.

What do kids in Mali do for their summer vacation? Read what one girl, Aminata, has planned for this break…

For the last several years, Mali Rising has hosted teacher peer meetings with many schools. These peer meetings have been very well received by our teachers, so we wanted to get our newest teachers involved as soon as possible. As a result, Christiana Norris Middle School recently joined their first peer meeting. All four of the new school’s teachers participated in the peer meeting, and they were joined by all the teachers from our Trujillo Family Middle School. One of Banko’s participating teachers was Mr. Moumoune Koné

In most rural villages in Mali, women play a fairly important role in taking charge of children's school fees. But to save money, many men prefer to enroll only boys in school and prefer girls stay at home with their mother. Yet who pays the students' tuition fees? In the majority of our schools, women pay school fees. To raise funds for the fees, women may cut firewood, pick shea nuts to make shea butter, grow vegetables in gardens to sell at the market, or grow. These hard-working mothers can do amazing things for thier kids…with just a tiny bit of help!

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.