School project Ngalabougou

Ngalabougou is a small village with about 300 habitants in the” Saheli”, a semi arid area in the southwest of Mali. The main activity of the habitants is agriculture and animal breeding for their own consummation. The village has a market but no school.  Although the next schools are about 5-10 km located in surrounding villages, no child from Ngalabougou goes to school.

This project was initiated in 2009 to create a community school in Ngalabougou for alphabetisation of children aged from 6-8 years in French since French is the official language in Mali. Since the beginning we use the national school program of Mali for the education of the children with the aim that in 5-6 years the government will take over and transform the community school to a public school.

We have now four teachers:  two women and two men with a total of 58-60 pupils in the school. Last year we received a governmental site visit and following requirements must be fulfilled to become a governmental or public school: (1) the classrooms must get larger and the school bench do not accord Malian School Norm yet (2) Sanitations are required (3) a building for administrative works/headquarter is still missing. Those will be the challenges for the next two years to become a public school.

The estimation of costs is 12000€ to complete the allowance of the governmental inspection. The NGO “ÖSTERREICH-DOUBALE-MALI” will sponsor 25% and we are seeking for additional support or partners to realize this project.