Help Build a Future for IDP Women & Children

Arts to End Genocide has been working with the Faladji Camp in Bamako, Mali, since 2020..   The people in this camp  fled from North and Central Mali due to the conflicts in the areas  where they lived..   When they fled south no one would take them so they ended up  living literally on a garbage dump in Bamako next to stockyards of cattle and goats.  

Arts to End Genocide in partnership with ADICOM, a local based NGO in Mali, has had several programs for these, our brothers and sisters,   As you can see on our website, www.artstoendgenocide.org we first helped build a medical facility with the help of Rotary International and Rotary New Bern, NC to treat the 6000 + street children.   Arts to End Genocide (ATEG) has been providing doctors and medicine ever since.   Other programs that have been started are to help with food insecurity by providing a month’s ration of rice per family. We started a sewing program to train  some of the women who now train other women to sew.   Some of their products are shown at Tryon Palace in the gift shop in New Bern, NC.   A building was constructed to store the sewing machines.   A Women’s Cooperative was established so the women themselves could decide how to spend the money generated with their proceeds. We started a Sponsor a Child program to help raise funds for all our programs.   The funds generated go to the whole community and not to the child alone.  We were excited to start the first school program for children 5-8 years old last Fall to attend first grade.   Our project provided clothes and book bags (made by the women that had learned to sew), two pairs of shoes, school supplies, the subscription fees and birth certificates for this first group of  children to attend school.  ATEG also paid for a supervisor to check on the children, to see that they were attending and how they were doing.   In conclusion, we found that the girls were more regularly attending, they also made more progress in the program.  For this coming year we will address some of these issues to help the boys better succeed and we hope to start more children in school this Fall.  

Our newest programs through a Proctor and Gamble Alumni Grant have now started 3 new training programs for women.   One is a soap making program, another henna training, and then milk processing.  With these programs we hope to get more women self-sufficient to help their families.  

We are in great appreciation to all our donors and sponsors that have helped in ATEG’s endeavor to make a better life for these our brothers and sisters in the Faladji Camp in Bamako, Mali.  

Sincerely Submitted by,

Paula Saihati