Mali: Learn young people for a better future
Mali is one of the poorest countries in the world. Millions of children lack school education, a lot of young people are unemployed. Two Terre Des Hommes projects give 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.
As a partner organization with many years of experience in the professional training and further education of young people Terre Des Hommes is at the organization “Aja” (Association Jeunesse Action Mali). In Aja's training centers, young women and men qualify, for example, in the areas of solar energy and computer maintenance, in craft professions such as carpentry or in poultry, cattle and fish breeding.
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 family in the village, hoping to make good money as a housemaid in the big city. But their hope is usually not fulfilled: often until late at night, the girls worked for a hunger wage, quite a few are abused or sexually abused. The Terre Des Hommes partner organization “APSEF” (Association Pour La Promotion of the Droits et Le Bien être de la Famile) offers girls in this emergency: You will find refuge in a protective center and receive legal assistance. In 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 its own room. And the girls now also know that they do not have to endure sexual attacks by employers, but can defend themselves.