Children of Mali – Education Update – December 2021

Cultural activities

It has been another busy period for the dance troupe.  During a school break, the children came to the Centre every day and had a chance to learn several new dances.  They were also introduced to new musical instruments, such as the balafon and the dounou.  Citizenship was the chosen theme.


The troupe is still involved in creating performances geared towards educating the general population on a variety of social justice aspects such as gender issues, the negative impact of genital mutilation, and early marriages for girls. 

Tutoring program

The children went through a process of evaluation on their level of French competency.  The program is built on learning French songs.  Bintou, the program coordinator was happy to report that out of 20 children, 14 of them showed excellent progress. 

The 2 tutors went through a second training session to enable them to teach the next level of the program.   The training, led by Omar Traouré, also covered the acquisition of new teaching techniques.  Subsequently the student group was divided into two in order to better meet the needs of the children, as some recently joined the group and needed to start with level 1 of the program whereas others were ready to move on to level 2.