Mali: Learn young people for a better future
Mali is one of the poorest countries in the world. Millions of children lack education, and many young people are unemployed. Two Terre des Hommes projects are giving them opportunities for a life beyond poverty and exploitation.
Dozens mostly jihadist groups fight for power, money and influence in Mali. Violence and terror are spreading further and further despite the UN blue helmet. Hundreds of thousands of people are on the run. In addition, the effects of the climate crisis are causing many: droughts and thus poverty as well as hunger have increased significantly.
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Many children leave school early to increase family income with their work. Some of them join radical groups for money and food. Ramata Coulibaly, project coordinator of terre des hommes in Mali, knows about the desperate location of the children and adolescents: "Hundreds of thousands had to flee from her home to other parts of Mali to escape the armed conflict between militias and government troops."
Children who were separated from their families in particular are in danger of being abused and exploited. 5.9 million people need humanitarian aid - over half of them are children. The ticket to a better future is called education, Ramata Coulibaly is convinced of that.
Terre des Hommes ' partner organization, AJA (Association Jeunesse Action Mali), has many years of experience in vocational training and continuing education for young people. At AJA's training centers, young women and men gain qualifications in fields such as solar energy and computer maintenance, skilled trades such as carpentry, and poultry, livestock, and fish farming.
During your two -year training, you learn not only to think entrepreneurially, but also to work in local companies. And after the end, the employees of Aja accompany the young people in their search for a permanent job or to become self -employed.
Many girls leave their families in the village in the hope of earning good money as maids in the big city. But their hopes are usually not fulfilled: The girls often work late into the night for starvation wages, and quite a few are mistreated or sexually abused. Terre des Hommes partner organization APSEF (Association for the Promotion of Rights and Family Welfare) offers girls in this desperate situation help: They find refuge in a protection center and receive legal assistance. Over the past ten years, APSEF has enforced the rights of more than 5,000 girls: shorter working hours, regular payment of a minimum wage, or a room of their own. And the girls now also know that they do not have to endure sexual assault by their employers, but can defend themselves.