Plan Mali: what we do

Plan’s work in Mali covers 4 core areas, all of which are rooted in the rights of the child:

• Child survival and maternal health
• Education and development
• Child protection and participation
• Livelihood security

Plan Mali works to reduce child mortality and improve maternal health. Providing health clinics for parents and their children, as well as guidance during pregnancies, has helped improve these rates in Mali.

Communities actively participate in promoting the dangers of child and maternal health during pregnancy. Plan also supports children to take an active role in regular radio broadcasts, to raise awareness of health issues in the community.

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Plan Mali

Plan emergency teams are providing vital aid to children and families displaced by the Mali conflict - including food, education and child protection.

Find out more and support our emergency humanitarian response.

Plan has been operating in Mali since 1976, helping poor children to access their rights to health, education, protection and livelihoods.

We work to bring long lasting improvements to children’s lives across 39 municipalities in Mali and 292 village Communities.

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Plan International Helps Young Refugees Pursue Dreams

A Plan education program is helping one refugee from Mali strive for a better future.

 

When Hawa’s older sister arrived from Mali to a refugee camp in Burkina Faso in 2012, there were no secondary schools for her to attend.

She had no choice but to stay at home, and as a result, her family decided to marry her off. At just 16, she is already a mother.

“In my culture, children do not have the right to object to what their parents decide for them,” Hawa said. “All they have to do is accept it and put up [with it]. This situation is common in our community and a lot of girls like me are already married and pregnant.”

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Making it to school in Mali

My name is Soumata. I am 18 years old and live in a village in Koulikoro region, southern Mali. I started school in 2002 and dropped out in 2010, when I was just 16, after a series of personal issues. My father died, and later I became pregnant.

I was struggling to concentrate on my lessons at school and my life at home was very difficult. We barely had any food and could rarely afford to light up the house with candles.

Trying to study was almost impossible. My mother had no means to buy basic learning materials. I had very limited school supplies. Instead of the 17 school books required for lessons in year 8, I only had 7, and the lack of lighting at home meant I couldn’t revise in the evenings.

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Urgent support for children in northern Mali

We are expanding our humanitarian operation to northern regions of Mali where the conflict began and which have been inaccessible up to now. We are now working in Timbuktu. Children’s needs are great here where the troubles have been ongoing for over a year. Education and protection are priorities.

The overall situation in Mali remains quiet in the South and central regions while in the North, there are still some security issues – and there are fears about food shortages to come. Presidential elections in the country are scheduled for July.

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It’s Tough Without Any Friends

I argued with my mother again today. We haven’t been able to see eye-to-eye recently. She is cross, perhaps understandably so. She is desperately trying to convince me or even to force me to go back to school. I haven’t been attending school recently. I left school fuming 10 days ago and I haven’t been back since. She is trying to play down the episode which made me leave school nearly two weeks ago. That Monday, I was not allowed to enter the school yard and to attend school because I was not wearing the school uniform. The school uniform is compulsory here. In Kidal, I would never have been excluded from school because of a uniform issue–we were a wealthy family. My parents had good jobs. They had the means to support us. Here however, it is a struggle. It is a constant struggle for everything.


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Dire Humanitarian Needs in Timbuktu

People in Timbuktu, in the volatile northern region of Mali, need substantial humanitarian assistance according to reports from children’s organization Plan International.

The most pressing needs are education, child protection, food assistance, health care, water, hygiene and sanitation, it says. Infrastructure has been damaged and many people continue to live in fear despite the successes by the military campaign to free the north from the control of armed insurgents.

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Mother at 14...in a Refugee Camp

It is 9 o’clock in the morning. A tall, lean figure is making her way through the dusty wind in the Mental B refugee camp, in northern Burkina Faso. It’s 15-year-old Fadimata. She seems weary, tired, and stressed.

Fadimata was only 14 years old when she got married. The conflict in Timbuktu broke out just two months into her marriage, forcing her and husband Abdul to flee to neighboring Burkina Faso. For a year now, they have been living in exile in a Plan-funded refugee camp. It is in this strange place that Fadimata had her first experiences of married life and of motherhood.


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Mali conflict: Mohammed, the guitarist

Watch the clip to meet Mohammed, 'the guitarist' - a young boy who was forced to leave his home and guitar behind due to the conflict in Mali.

Now sheltering in a refugee camp with thousands of other displaced childen and adults in Mentao, he finds joy in playing the guitar at the Plan-supported children's centre set up there.

"I like it when people clap their hands and dance when we play the guitar," he says.

Mali one year on: Through teenagers' eyes

From fleeing violence to escaping forced marriage, Plan-supported teenagers blog about their experiences one year on since fighting broke out in north Mali.

They are among 447,000 people - more than half of them children - who have been forced from their homes and now lay scattered across 6 countries.

Plan is providing thousands of displaced children with education, protection and life-saving support.

Read some of their stories below and support Plan's emergency Mali conflict appeal

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The fight against female genital mutilation in Mali

When she was a girl, Kadi dreamt of having a husband and family. She never thought her journey into married life would cause her so much suffering, and certainly never imagined it would be life threatening.

Kadi lives in the rural village of Tingolé, roughly 90km east of the Malian capital, Bamako. As a young girl, she underwent the practice of excision, or female genital mutilation (FGM), and went on to suffer the consequences.

“They destroyed my body through this abominable practice, I have been through hell”

Experiencing major problems giving birth to her children, excessive abdominal bleeding and days of paralysis, Kadi very nearly lost her life. 

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Child marriage in conflict

“I wanted to become a doctor, but since we left home in Timbuktu, I don’t think I will be able to go back to school. I hear my family talking about finding me a husband as soon as possible. That’s not what I want.” 

14 year old Aicha, now living in Segou in southern Mali, is worried about her future. Like other girls caught up in conflict and other disasters, she is at increased risk of early marriage. Although the reasons behind child marriage are complex, poverty and fear of poverty often drive families into making this choice for their daughters – and poverty is often a consequence for families during conflict or following disasters. By pushing girls into marriage, parents have one less mouth to feed – and they may receive payment. 

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Rebuilding Mali

There are three disasters simultaneously unfolding in Mali.

First, the Sahel region in Africa has been battling a severe food crisis. This food crisis preceded the conflict and has been considered the worst in recent history. In Mali alone, 1.2 million people have been rendered food insecure and malnourished.

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You Never Have Too Little to Share

In a large compound on the outskirts of Ségou, two shadows are discernible in the shade of a mango tree, curled up, almost invisible. Aissata is laying down on the sandy ground with her little boy Bouba by her side.

She tries to find a comfortable position. However, without a mattress, mat, or even a cloth underneath her frail body, it looks impossible to achieve.

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Mali teenager: I never thought I would miss school

Sévaré is a very different town from what it had been over the past weeks.

People are gradually coming back and things are becoming normal as it used to be. We are hearing less and less gunshots.

I am glad things are returning to normal. Even my 6-year-old brother, Mamadou, is not crying anymore - but he has gone all quiet about the dead bodies he saw close to the military barracks. I am avoiding the subject with him because I don’t want to make him cry again. At the same time I am still worried about him. I would like to know what is in his mind when he seems so absorbed in his thoughts. I am hoping that once he returns to school he will cheer up.

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The Needs of Children Must Not Be Forgotten in Budgets to Secure Mali

Plan’s Head of Disaster Response Returned from Central Mali to Report Many Humanitarian Needs

Head of Disaster Response of Plan International, Dr. Unni Krishnan, says that it is imperative that donors rethink their stance on Mali and other countries in the Sahel affected by the humanitarian fallout from the Mali Conflict.

On the day that an international donors' conference opens in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, to raise $950 million to fund the military campaign in Mali, he said that the world must not turn a deaf ear to appeals from the humanitarian community.

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A Once Peaceful Life Now in Danger

“Peaceful, clean, and quiet,” are the words that 12-year-old Mariama uses to describe her village in Ansongo.

Ansongo lies on the Niger River, about half way between Gao and the Niger border in Mali. Several weeks ago, the village was raided by heavily armed bandits and Islamic extremists as part of the on-going conflict in northern Mali that has created chaos and fear in villages large and small.

“We don’t know where they came from, or why, but they brought death and destruction with them,” says Mariama.


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Mali teenager: Every time I hear gunfire I rush to my brother

Hamidou, a teenage boy living in Mopti, Mali, blogs about his experiences in the conflict-hit country and how the fighting is affecting his family.

Today, I caught my brother crying again.

He usually does that when he thinks he is alone in a room. Mamadou is 6 years old and he does not like anyone to see him crying lest he be teased and called a girl. But he can’t help it. He often cries because of the fighting and what he has seen.

It is not easy living like this. I wanted to leave, like my neighbours. All my friends from school have fled with their families. The teachers have left as well. School was so empty last week and the head teacher closed the school for a week.

I envy those who have left. At least, they don’t have to put up with all this.

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Help needed for thousands of children in Mali

Women and children are in desperate need of the basics – food, water and shelter - as fighting continues across Mali, leaving 376 000 people displaced and many without access to aid.

In the days following the fighting that erupted on January 10th, at least 10,000 more Malians have abandoned their homes and joined the hundreds of thousands that are already displaced. The UN refugee agency predicts this number will rise to more than 750 000 throughout the year.

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A Painful Separation

Nine-year-old Saoudata has had to make a sacrifice that no little girl should.

She’s had to evacuate Sévaré without her mother and her 2-year-old brother. The only reason that they were left behind was because her mother, Habibatou, was short on bus fare by twelve dollars.

“She has to put her children first, that is what mothers do,” said her Aunt Zachery.

Saoudata and her siblings will be living with their Aunt Zachery and Uncle Ahmed.


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