I am so excited to finally announce that on March 13, I'll be on my way to Mali, West Africa, where I will be helping to put the final touches on a first-ever schoolhouse in a small, rural village, a few hours outside of Segou. The three-room school will serve kids in approximately grades K-12; during the evenings, it will serve as a women's education center.
The project I'll be undertaking is part of the Millennium Promise effort to achieve the
Millennium Development Goals (
MDGs) - eight globally endorsed objectives that address the many aspects of extreme poverty in Africa by 2015. I'll be traveling with twenty Chicago Public school students that are involved in the organization
Building with Books, an after-school CPS program that guides students as volunteers in the local community and helps build schools in developing countries. To date,
Building with Books has built 240 schools in villages worldwide, providing more than 100,000 children and parents with access to education, and the CPS students that are involved with this program are some of the most motivated, interesting and bright kids that I know - they remind me of the amazing things that happen in the Chicago Public School system (despite all the gloom and doom that is so often times the only aspect of CPS reflected in the media). I'm so happy to discover Africa with this incredible group of teenagers and relieved to know that there is a new generation looking upon the future with worldly eyes. I am saddened and humbled by the fact that close to 50% of children in Mali die before the age of 5, that the literacy rate for women is only 12%, that the average life expectancy is 54, and although our efforts will make but a
minuscule dent in these hard realities, I do believe that the CPS students involved will keep Mali in mind as they embark upon their educational and career paths, multiplying our efforts twentyfold and beyond.
I am among those rare souls that actually looks forward to giving up all my worldly goods for a spell, forcing more gratitude into my bones. Staying with a local family means I'll be sleeping on a dirt floor, guiding my way to the hole in the ground (a.k.a. toilet) by starlight and eating lots of porridge. But one of the hardest parts of this trip will be by far the fact that I'll be incommunicado for the entire time that I am far away on the other side of the planet, literally near Timbuktu: I have prepared my son by reading books and stories about Africa, by discussing poverty and the simple reality that we are so lucky to be going off to school in the mornings. He's helping me study Bambara and is catching on quicker!
If you have any questions on
Building with Books or the
Millennium Promise, please comment or email me at
amydelfinodesouza@gmail.com. I'll be updating on my journey upon return. Check back at the end of March!