I am happy to report a successful technical exchange I took with my community counterpart, and the President of my women’s association. We toured the northern part of the Segou region, meeting with women's centers and associations involved in female empowerment and income generating activities in hopes of opening a women's cooperative center with the members in our community
We started the exchange in Markala with an adult literacy group. They hold basic Bambara reading and writing classes and basic math once a week in the volunteer’s counterpart’s concession. They were provided literacy books from peace corps and the chalkboards, chalk and notebooks were provided with funding by the Peace Corps Volunteer.
In Niono, we visited the “Center for sewing and cutting,” of which the current PCV serving there has contributed to their impressive organization.
The center highlighted their teaching approach for their students, starting with sewing simple straight lines, moving on to making patterns from paper and then on to childrens’ clothing. Additionally, they hold seminar trainings on HIV/AIDS, female circumcision, nutrition, cooking and other useful information for their demographic of younger troubled teens.
As an added bonus (!) I gave them samples of my recycled plastic bags and they LOVED them. And want to start producing them right away. Niono is a dirty town, I mean dirty... and these plastic trash bags are everywhere with no real solutions. So small projects like this could make a real impact and raise awareness.
At the debrief with our association following the technical exchange, their enthusiasm for the project increased ten-fold. They are actively in touch with many associations in their communities who make soap, shea butter and are interested in food drying. My association is VERY interested in starting a sewing center and literacy classes, and they have a strong partnership with my counterpart NGO, where they would provide information seminars on topics such as AIDS, nutrition and female circumcision.
Seeing those associations in action was invaluable. The association's President was inspired and motivated. It was very important for her to see a successful Malian organization because simply hearing it from me, the "toubabu" sounds like folklore. Witnessing the determination of the other associations showed her that opening a center like this takes tremendous work but is entirely possible.
I am actively looking for potential sponsors for the center and have a few inquiries already, but am putting some of the pressure on the association and my counterpart to utilize all of their resources first, before I can contribute my part in assisting them with realizing their goal.
