Dear Build a School in Africa supporters,

In 2002, Kyla McKenna, a senior at the Bromfield School in Harvard, Massachusetts, founded Build a School in Africa as her senior Humanities project, and asked me to mentor her efforts. Our goal was to raise enough money to help build one school in Mali, West Africa. We raised almost $10,000 the first year of the program, with other students taking over in succeeding years. We built our first school in 2005, and just kept going! We are now proud to announce that our 23rd school, a three room primary school in Zandiela, is almost finished, and we are planning to break ground for the 24th school in Zangabougou, funded largely by Lincoln- Sudbury High School’s “Schools for Africa” club, in January 2020.

In January of 2019, we started off the year by building two new classrooms in Tabacoro, financed primarily by a California tech company, to replace two mud brick classrooms that collapsed during heavy rains in August of 2018. Students there now have two sturdy concrete block classrooms, a substantial improvement over the dark and disintegrating mud brick rooms that fell apart.

Our benefit trail ride this August was very successful; forty-three riders followed a marked trail through conservation land and private trails, with a choice of 7 or 14 miles, followed by a home-cooked African buffet dinner. Co-sponsored by the Littleton Horse Owners Association, a large portion of the profits were donated to Build a School in Africa.

I did not go to Mali this year–I had long-delayed home improvement projects to deal with. But in October, in the capable hands of our Malian partners, Abou Coulibaly and Mamadou Traore, we started construction on a new primary school in Zandiela, financed by the same generous family that built classrooms in Kodialanida (2017) and Danzana (2018). The new school will have solar lights in one of the classrooms, plus much-needed school supplies. Maps and globes are standard in American classrooms, but sadly lacking in many Malian schools.

We have several more communities on our waiting list: Fantala and Ifola rural villages, and Mancourani B, in a more urban setting in Sikasso. We’re not likely to run out of communities in need of schools any time soon…

Many thanks and very best wishes to all our supporters for the holidays and the New Year!

Judy Lorimer, Mamadou Traore, Abou Coulibaly, and Matthew Heberger

We’re just $1,000 short of what we need to build two new classrooms, latrines, and an office/storage building in village of Zangabougou in southern Mali.

Zangabougou will be our 23rd school! Please consider making a year-donation to help us break ground.

Because we are a small, all-volunteer organization, all donations go 100% to school construction.

The past year has been another very successful one for this small, all-volunteer organization. A year ago, we started construction on our 18th and 19th schools, in Kodialanida and Nolabougou, which were completed in late winter; our 20th, in N’Dalle, was completed later in the spring.

On my recent visit to Mali, we visited all three schools, and found all were doing well. N’Dalle now has enough classrooms for grades one through nine, but Kodialanida and Nolabougou would like to have enough cement-block classrooms for grades 1 – 6.

In the community of Danzana, construction of a three-room middle school was well under way. Construction is expected to be completed by late February or early March; the walls are up already; the roof will go on next week.

The family that funded three classrooms last year in Kodialanida has also fully funded the school in Danzana, including solar panels to provide lighting for evening studies, adult literacy classes, homework, and community meetings. They also donated $1,000 for classroom supplies: maps and globes for each classroom, dictionaries, both English and French, science charts and posters, teachers’ manuals for all subjects, and much more.

Dear Build a School in Africa supporters – I’m happy to share with you a few photos from Director Judy Lorimer’s visit to Mali in November 2017. Judy helped start construction of two new schools in the villages of Kodialanida and Nolabougou, visited several schools we had built since 2011, and visited two communities that have requested funding for new schools.

The two schools begun in November are now completed and in operation. Since then, we have also begun construction of a new school in the village of N’Dalen.

New school building in Kodialanida, begun in November 2017. There are three new classrooms in Kodialanida.

The family that funded the entire school also donated funds for solar panels for one classroom, so children and teachers could do homework or work on curriculum plans in the evenings.

New school in Nolabougou.

Class in session at the new school in Nolabougou.

Students in Nolabougou. One of the few photos where the kids smiled for Judy. Education is serious stuff in Mali!

This was an exceptional year for this tiny non-profit organization. Our 17th school was completed in Doumanaba last spring, providing new classrooms to replace classes that had been housed in an old storeroom, and two more schools are presently under construction.

New school in Doumanaba, Mali

Our 18th project was to build a new school in the community of Kodialanida; the roof of one of their classrooms had collapsed earlier in the year, injuring several children. We were exceptionally fortunate to be contacted by a generous family in the American west; they not only donated funds for THREE classrooms, but also added solar panels for one classrooms, giving children and teachers the ability to do homework or plan lessons after dark, and provide evening literacy classes or hold meetings.

In November, BSA Director Judy Lorimer traveled to Mali (at her own expense) to participate in the groundbreaking ceremonies for Kodialanida and also Nolabougou, where we planned to build two new classrooms.

“Briki Folo Da” or laying the ceremonial first brick for a new school on Nov 20, 2017

In 16 days, the walls of Kodialanida’s new school were up to the tops of the windows.

Quick progress on building the new school in Kodialanida

In Nolabougou, they had three cement block classrooms that had been built 20 years ago and were showing their age – crumbling cement around rusted or missing doors and windows, cracked walls, and broken concrete floors. Since Save the Children had recently built new latrines and the office/storage building that BSA usually builds, we will be able to use those funds to repair and paint the old classrooms as well as replacing temporary or mud- brick classrooms with brand new ones, thanks in large part to a substantial donation from Wigigo.

The current school building Nolabougou that is in need of repairs

We visited four schools that we have built since 2011: Sossoro, Kounfouna, Tiogola and Doumanaba. The donor for Kodialanida also designed a survey that we gave to the ten most recent schools, to determine how having the new schools has impacted life in their communities. The survey will help us determine future expansions and track the growth in the number of children attending school. We hope to publish the survey results on our website after the information is compiled. Most of the communities where we have built new schools have reported increased enrollments, and they would like more classrooms. Visits to other communities on our waiting list reveal that there are still far too many villages that are making do with temporary shelters: walls of straw mats or cornstalks lashed to wooden poles, or the small, dark and stuffy buildings made of mud brick.

Children learning in a temporary classroom.

N’Dalen, our next project, is fortunate to be a large village that draws students from nearby communities to its middle school, which has an enrollment of 400+, but they need more concrete classrooms for their grades 1-3, now housed in mud-brick or temporary classrooms. As you can imagine, it is much easier to hire and keep teachers if they have decent, light and airy classrooms in which to teach.

An older classroom in Tabakoro

All our classrooms meet or exceed government standards, with 5 large windows in each classroom. Contrast the photo below with the one in Tabakoro: the mud-brick walls have large cracks, and the doors and windows are in disrepair. But we also have a request for a new middle school in the large town of M’Pessoba. Middle schools are rare outside the major cities, which means that for most children in rural areas, their education effectively ends with grade 6, unless there is a middle school within walking distance or parents can afford to board their children with friends or relatives in a town that does offer grades 7 through 9. High schools are usually found only in the major towns and cities.

An airy and bright new classroom in Kounfouna

There is no end to the demand – and need – for more schools, and our waiting list keeps growing. The two schools presently under construction should be completed by the end of February, and depending on available funding, we will start construction in N’Dalen by next fall.

Build a School in Africa is a very small organization, but we have managed to raise funds for 19 schools since 2005; N’Dalen will be our 20th. A popular Malian proverb states “Dooni dooni kononi be nyaga da” — “Little by little the bird builds its nest.” Every donation helps, and we thank all our supporters for their generosity.

I ni ce — Thank you! Best wishes for a joyous and healthy year in 2018.

Judy Lorimer, Madou Traore, Abou Coulibaly, and Matt Heberger

We are delighted to announce a partnership with Wigigo, an app developed by a Swiss technology company. Last year, the developers told us they would like to help support the construction of our next school. Every time you use their app Wigigo to purchase a gift, they will donate 1 Euro (a little over a dollar) to Build a School in Africa, up to $20,000.

For more information, see www.wigigo.com, or try downloading the app:

Great news! Our partners in Mali send word that construction of the new school in Doumanaba is now underway.

Your donations made it possible for children in this village to attend school in a clean, modern classrooms. The photos show the preparation of the site, making of bricks, and digging of a pit for latrines at the school.

Dear Build a School in Africa Supporters,

All in all, 2016 was another good year for this small, all-volunteer organization. The Build a School in Africa project is still going strong – by early spring we had finished our 15th school, in Tiogola, and our 16th, in Nimporodioula (villages in southern Mali, in West Africa).

New school at Tiogola, our 15th

The school in Tiogola was mostly financed by the international fan clubs of a Korean “boy band” called Super Junior in honor of its 10th anniversary. They are now raising funds for an 11th anniversary school project. They got a late start, so my trip to Mali has been moved forward to January.

Inside a new classroom in Tiogola

In January, 2016, in Nimporodioula, the temporary shelters made of straw mats lashed to a pole framework were replaced by durable cinder-block classrooms, creating much better learning environments for the students. This was the third school mostly financed by a California tech company, which had also built schools in NʼGolokouna and Gongasso in the previous two years.

A makeshift, open-air classroom in Nimporodioula where children took classes before the new school was built

In January 2017, weʼll break ground on school #17, in the community of Doumanaba. Presently, Doumanaba is holding 3 classes in the dismal building pictured below. These were built as storerooms used for grain and cotton, not as schools. We will be building 3 new classrooms for the community. Villagers will be providing the usual “in kind” contributions of land, sand and gravel, and unskilled labor, and also some cash funding for the third classroom, as our usual $15,000 contribution will build just two classrooms, plus an office, storage room, and latrines. As you can imagine, the people of Doumanaba will be very happy to trade this building for a bright new school like the others on this page.

Building in Doumanaba where children are attending school. It was originally built as a warehouse and does not have adequate light or ventilation.

We are grateful to all our donors, large and small; large contributions have enable us to build two schools a year for the last few years, but they would not have been possible without the support of all of you. As they say in Bambara, “Dooni dooni kononi be nyaga da” – “Little by little the bird builds its nest.”

Our benefit trail ride on August 21, 2016. We had 40 riders, who could choose to ride 7, 15, or 20 miles of beautiful woods trails, followed by a home-cooked 5 course African buffet dinner. The youngest rider (on the black horse) was only 4 years old, and she rode 15 miles. Our oldest rider was 80.

Many thanks for your support! We couldn’t do it without you.

Very best wishes for a happy holiday season and a joyful new year.

Judy Lorimer, Abou Coulibaly, Madou Traore, and Matt Heberger

View from the road of the new school in Nimporodioula, our 16th

We’ve gotten word from ELF, the International Super Junior Fan Club,  that they will be supporting Build a School in Africa again this year. In 2015, clubs around the world raised enough to fund our 14th new school, benefiting deserving children in Mali, West Africa.

Thank you ELF! Good luck with your fundraising! The children of Mali will be so grateful for their beautiful new school!

ELF chapters around the world hope to raise enough money to build a new school dedicated to our favorite K-Pop idols.

The Lincoln Journal, in Massachusetts, published a great article about how a group of local students is raising money to help us build schools in Africa.

Since its start in 2011, Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School’s Schools for Africa Club has been fundraising to build a school in Mali, West Africa — a country with one of the lowest literacy rates on the continent.

The student-run group is trying to raise $25,000 to erect a school to accommodate more than 100 students through the nonprofit organization Build a School in Africa, which has raised funds and built a new school every year in Mali since 2005.

Read the full story here.