École itinérante

The École itinérante, or ‘mobile school’, is one of the core activities of V4T Academy Mali. Trainers and coaches travel from one municipality to another to select young people and provide several days of training in the Academy’s different disciplines: qualitative and quantitative research, arts, audiovisual production, and reporting. The young people who receive this training then become trainers themselves, passing on their knowledge and skills to other young people through a ‘training of trainers’ approach.

Rather than operating solely from fixed locations at its branches, the Academy also brings its activities to young people through the mobile schools, reaching those in smaller and more remote communities across the regions where the Academy operates, from Bougouni to Timbuktu. Young people in these areas may have fewer opportunities to access spaces and structures where they can develop, express, and make their voices heard than those living in larger or more centrally located communities. The mobile schools are therefore an important initiative for building local youth networks, strengthening community support, and reinforcing existing local youth centers (Maisons des Jeunes). Activities at these centers include presenting artistic productions to local communities and facilitating dialogue and debate.

Each branch focuses on themes and issues that reflect current events and the specific context of the area, as well as the realities and experiences of local young people, within the broader themes of the PGLR+ programme: good governance, accountability, inclusion, and gender.

The knowledge, skills, and experiences gained through qualitative and quantitative research are further explored and developed during ‘creative residencies’ and subsequently transformed into artistic productions, including slam poetry and theatre.

Young people trained in audiovisual production document these creative residencies in the different regions, including the one in Douentza presented below. During one of the creative residencies, young people explored the issue of ‘déscolarisation’ (school dropout) through slam poetry and theatre. Read the research report here.

Interviews held on ‘early and forced marriage as a factor in school dropout in rural areas: the case of Ondogou Commune’, as part of the écoles itinérante of the Bankass branch.

The artistic productions developed during the creative residencies are then presented to local communities during so-called ‘tournées‘, held at local youth and cultural centers. These tours are not only opportunities to showcase the productions, but also spaces for dialogue, with time after each performance for the audience to discuss and reflect on what they have seen.