By Mahaitou Maiga, YES Mali, 2007-2008 

My name is Mahaitou Ibrahim Maiga, I’m from Mali, and I’m a 2007-2008 YES alumnus. My exchange experience had a very big impact on my life, firstly from a cultural view and secondly, from a personal evaluation view.

The Youth Exchange and Study program is a challenge I faced because of the society that welcomed us. American society might have some similarities with mine, but the differences are much bigger. I learned so many values from the American people, like tolerance and patriotism. I learned personal responsibility and became more mature. I learned to make decisions myself and assume responsibility for consequences. I discovered the American youth and their concept of other people, in terms of culture, religion etc. After the program, I felt that there was nothing I couldn’t do. I was able to speak up to address certain social problems like education and corruption. Some friends and I created an association to deal with our community problems. I learned to do community service during my exchange year, and since I returned, I have been involved in so many projects in my country.

As an alumnus, I have taught free English summer classes in Bourem, planted trees to fight desertification in Diago, organized a clothing/shoe drive for the displaced people from the conflict zones in Bamako, volunteered at an orphanage in Sanankoroba, helped to recruit YES students, donated books to children during floods in Bamako, worked on the AEIF project “Change is me” to help young displaced women in Mopti and Bamako get back on their feet after the security crisis, organized a conference on conflict resolution and promoting peace, as well as a soccer competition reconciliation, and opened a computer training center in Bourem.

Our ICT center is a public facility accessible to all, especially teachers and middle and high school students. It was opened to offer basic computer literacy training to the rural population of Bourem. We offer training in Windows, Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Paint and more. Despite its growing population and a high number of students going to college without any computer skills, Bourem has never had the chance to make such a center available. With the desire to address this problem, I developed this project and presented it for funding during our YES Istanbul Workshop, where I received funding to start it. The center opened in January, and the demand was overwhelming. We took in our first group of teachers, and they completed their training after three weeks with satisfactory results.

Training takes place every day for four hours and six hours on weekends. Training for high school students that is still in continuation followed. Because of the demand, I am working on plans to move to a bigger location and add more computers that use solar energy.