Social and Employment
Place
Bamako, Mali
Sponsor
Valérie Fouet
Grant(s)
18 000 € to the Selection Committee at 2007/05/22
Project leader
Jamais Abou de souffle
« It is encouraging to see how happy the children are to go to school and that more and more of them are benefiting. The premises therefore have to be enlarged to receive even more children. The construction of the Joseph-Ki-Zerbo School will provide schooling for more than 700 children in an appropriate setting.
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Valérie Fouet
One day in July 2006, Abou, a little boy living in the streets of Bamako, dared to approach a "monsieur". He handed him a piece of paper in which he asked him to register him in school. The monsieur, Philippe Schmitt, an Air France captain, was touched by the gesture: he founded the association Jamais Abou de souffle to help the most destitute young Malians to attend school.
For his part, Modibo Coulibaly, headmaster of the Joseph-Ki-Zerbo Primary School, located in the Djikoroni Para neighborhood on the outskirts of Bamako, has constantly been expanding his school to enable the disadvantaged children to get an education. Created in 1996 and receiving 32 children in its first school year, the school had five primary classes in 2001, three additional junior high school classes in 2005, and its students have impressive success rates: 100% success in the primary studies certificate since 2005, and 80% of the basic studies diploma in 2006!
Three new teaching jobs
Yet the buildings of the Joseph-Ki-Zerbo School are far from being "at the level" of the results obtained by those who attend it: lacking sufficient financial resources, the school is reduced to occupy the various rooms of a temporarily converted house.
Thanks to the meeting with Jamais Abou de souffle, the situation is now going to change. The headmaster and the association have decided to build a school unit of 700 m2distributed on three levels with 11 classrooms, two staff offices and eight toilets.
This project, with which the Foundation is gladly associated, will guarantee schooling in excellent material conditions for 700 students, and will also help to create three full-time teaching jobs.