December 2018—Mariam Ibrahim is a 12 years-old young girl from the village of Haoussa Foulane in the commune of Gabero in Gao region. After the 2012 conflict in the Northern regions of Mali, she dropped out from the madrasa school of Zinda. Mariam let down her educational and professional ambitions, as almost 50 children from her village. Since that period, her days were rhythmed with domestic chores. As the education situation in Mali moves from emergency to protracted crises, and schools begin to reopen, there are many children and youth who have missed out on years of schooling.  As a result, thousands of them have been deprived of opportunities to learn and make living wages.

 Today, thanks to the USAID Education Recovery Support Activity (USAID/ERSA) Program, Mariam sees her dreams coming true as she got re-enrolled to her village public school. Like thousands of children in that area, Mariam Ibrahim resumed school on October 9, 2018. ERSA aims at providing equitable access to quality education to 12, 000 out of school children and youth in conflict-affected areas like Gao and Menaka regions.

 The project developed an adapted program for resilience and school insertion. The accelerated learning curriculum developed by ERSA covers the first three years of schooling to prepare students for their return to school at the grade 4, while it also promotes resilience and living-together. ERSA opened a first cohort of 142 centers using special materials. After ERSA conducted a learning assessment of students of these centers, 1,938 students were able to integrate formal schools for the 2017-2018 school year. Around 13 other children from Mariam’s village also entered school. According to the school principal, Boubacar Dicko, the transfer of these children into the formal school was very easy thanks to the new classroom constructed by ERSA in the school.

 Moreover Mariam’s good testing results led the school principal to move her from 4th to 5th grade of the formal school. She was among the seven other center graduates to perform so well. “In the center we learned to read, write, and to express ourselves in French through the use of games and audio programs. These new skills allowed me to better understand courses we have at school”, explains Mariam.

 Mariam’s parents support her. Today thanks to her level in French, she helps her father reading and writing his cell phone text messages and does not need to ask help from other young people from the neighboring family when her family needs to make a call in French.

 By 2020, this 15.2 million project—in collaboration with Mali’s government and other education partners—will allow 7, 540 children from 8 to 12 to return to formal school after one-year of the accelerated learning program and construct 150 classrooms and blocks of latrines in Gao and Menaka regions.