Building a Women's Center in Nebkit, Mali

An estimated 69 percent of the population in Mali lives below the poverty line. These people are concentrated mainly in rural areas, like Nebkit, and are mostly women. Chronic and acute malnutrition rates among infants are high and over 50 percent of infant deaths are caused by malnutrition. The main causes of these nutritional problems are inadequate diets, poor nutritional practices, and frequent infections. However, the high levels of poverty and illiteracy, especially among women, also greatly contribute to the high mortality rate. Within this context, ensuring that local capacities are strengthened through training programs is critical to the long-term sustainability of health and nutrition interventions in Mali.

The World Food Program’s school feeding campaign in Mali successfully reached 108,524 children in 712 schools during the 2007-2008 school year. Due to WFP’s school meals, enrollment has increase 30% in the assisted schools. The daily meal encourages parents to let their children attend school classes regularly, and also helps children concentrate on their lessons.

In addition to the meals, Malian girls in grades five and six receive eight liters of vegetable oil each quarter as an incentive for regular attendance. This helps contribute to the household budget and parents are even more likely to send their daughters to school. School feeding not only improves the nutrition of children in Mali, but also empowers them with educational opportunities.

The Nebkit Women’s Center will have a similar benefit on the community as does WFP’s school feeding program. The center will empower women by providing them with a place for education, training and work. Women will learn good nutritional practices to care for themselves and their children. The center will also allow for a place to work and it will increase revenue generating activities. This will improve households’ standard of living and enable the women to contribute to their children’s education. Thank you for your generous support to this project! We will certainly keep you apprised of its progress as more donations come in!