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The funding cut was “a big shock for us,” said Amadi Ba, a counsellor at the Pedagogical Animation Center, which is in charge of the school in Bamako.In a country where local language-education relies solely on funding from Mali’s development partners with little to no help from the government, concerns exceed its immediate impact on the education of children.

In 2023, Mali’s military government decided to make the country’s native tongues the official languages in place of French, which then became the “working language.” Official documents, including the constitution, the mining code and other texts, were then translated into the national languages.The USAID cut will “certainly have a negative impact on the development of mother-tongue education, especially since it came in the middle of the school year,” Cissé said.“We haven’t even had time to think about a mechanism to cushion the blow,” she added.

While it lasted, the program was beneficial to many in various ways.Oumou Traoré, a mother of two who grows onions and eggplants for a living, recalled how the training improved her farming business, particularly in pricing her goods in Bamako’s Mountougoula district.

“Since I learned to calculate the weight of my onions and keep my accounts in my mother tongue, I’ve started selling my onions myself,” said Traore, 29. “I now earn $95 instead of the $60 I used to get. This has encouraged me to grow other vegetables.”

The 2021 coup resulted in the country turning to Russia as a key ally after severing ties with the West, including the U.S., which at some point was Mali’s leading foreign aid donor.. But have you given thought to what containers you’ll use?

You might be planning to buy rimmed trays, peat pots or compartmentalized plastic flats, but they’re not your only options. With a bit of imagination, you can easily upcycle items you already have while keeping trash out of the landfill and your money in your wallet.If you have a coffee maker that uses K-Cup-style plastic pods, don’t discard them after brewing. Instead, peel off their foil covers, dump out the used coffee grinds and remove the paper filters underneath. The pods are the perfect size for starting seedlings, and can be washed, disinfected and reused from year to year. You’ll notice the machine even poked a hole in each pod’s bottom for drainage.

Most other small plastic food containers, such as single-serving yogurt cups, clamshell-type salad packages or egg cartons, are also well-suited for starting seeds -- as long as you’veYou can even make seed pots from sheets of newspaper. Much of today’s newsprint uses soy-based ink, which is generally considered non-toxic, suitable even for starting edibles.