Caravan To Class News

FEBRUARY, 2021

Caravan to Class has just selected its second cohort of Bourse Jackie scholarship recipients. The Bourse Jackie scholarship is a very selected award given to female high school graduates from Timbuktu, Mali, for a 4-year scholarship to the public university in Bamako, the capital of Mali. The scholarship includes payment for tuition, books, room & board, and transportation. In addition, the scholarship provides for a 3-month intensive English program in nearby Ghana. English language skills are fairly rare in Mali, and an important career differentiator.

From a very competitive applicant pool, Caravan to Class selected ten finalists who recently took an exam administered by Caravan to Class’ partner, the Timbuktu Ministry of Education. The top five scores on this exam received a Bourse Jackie scholarship. Read on to view the biographies of these recipients written in their own hand, demonstrating how worthy and deserving they are of this life-changing opportunity provided by Caravan to Class donors.

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AUGUST 20, 2020

Dear friends,

I hope you are well during these challenging times.

When I first traveled in Mali in 2010, after having been to a good number of other African countries, I quickly fell in love with the country. I am not sure exactly what it was, but perhaps a combination of Mali's history, the allure of the desert in the northeast, the numerous cultures, the music, and most of all the engaging nature of the people that warm your heart everywhere you go.

Since then, Mali has seen its disproportionate share of problems and serious challenges which continue to plague the country. Thankfully, none of these challenges has prevented Caravan to Class from realizing our important work in education in one of Africa’s most historically important places, Timbuktu, Mali.

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AUGUST 20, 2020

Recently, I sent a text to our “Bourse Jackie” Scholarship recipients (who receive university scholarships from Caravan to Class), to ask about their thoughts on Black Lives Matter. I was interested in their answers. While their skin is clearly black in color and they have faced difficult obstacles in their lives in one of the world’s poorest countries, they have likely never experienced the overt white vs black racism that many African-Americans have experienced. I thought about telling them they could text me in their native French language. But given the resources spent by Caravan to Class towards their English language education, I thought it would be interesting to ask them to write me in English…which they were happy to do. These are incredibly impressive young women as their words convey.

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FEBRUARY, 2020

The Dourgou school construction and operational support project:

Caravan to Class will build our 15th school in the village of Dourgou and provide operational support for three years. Operational support will include paying teachers’ salaries, providing basic nutrition for school lunches, and school supplies. In addition, Caravan to Class will provide school uniforms to all children and also implement our award-winning Female Adult Literacy program. The school will follow Malian standard instruction in French. The Timbuktu Ministry of Education will send a director, at their expense, to run the school and certify teachers for class instruction.

Make a donation now to Caravan to Class to help fund the Dourgou school construction project.

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