From Senegalese village to virtual world:
Girl scholar finds passion in computers and learning

Resolute Aissata Ba, a high school graduate with honors and beneficiary under the Ambassador's Girls Scholarship Program, exemplifies the saying, “Where there's a will, there's a way." This driving principle helped her as a seven-year-old to persuade her parents to allow her attend the new primary school in her village of Aéré Lao in Senegal’s vast northern region. More importantly, she convinced them of why she should further her education.

In the face of her herder father's doubts about why a girl would need an education and her mother’s pressing calls for her to stay home and help with household chores, she stood firm. "Good, hard work throughout primary school and a tenaciously supportive school master helped me open the door to hope," she says.

After finishing primary school, she moved in with a distant aunt in Podor where she attended high school with equal determination. She has always been fascinated by science and technology, which very much influenced her choice to concentrate on this subject area. She developed a passion for computers, after USAID, through its Education for Development and Democracy Initiative (EDDI), offered her an opportunity to learn this new technology which carried her into a new world full of wonder and magic.

The EDDI program provides Aissata and other scholarship recipients with tuition fees, books and school supplies. It also pays for Internet connectivity and arranges tutorial sessions, exam preparation, leadership training and regional workshops where the girls meet and exchange experiences. Along with their mentors, recipients discuss peer pressure, gender stereotypes, self-esteem, self-awareness, HIV/AIDS, and behavior change communication.

Aissata has divided a good deal of her time between the classroom and the computer room. She coordinates the “Club of EDDI Girls” which produces its own magazine, but her greatest source of pride has been the opportunity to share her passion for computers with a group of primary school girls. In this way she has been able to give six younger girls what she could have at their age due to her family’s limited income. She is thankful to the girls’ parents and headmaster for their support in this initiative. She is especially grateful to the EDDI Program for giving, beyond financial assistance, the courage and the civic values that have helped her develop as a young leader.

Aissatata is now 19 and in her first year at the Gaston Berger University in Saint Louis, Senegal. She’s finding her way in life, with ample willpower to succeed.

USAID, through the Ambassador’s Girls Scholarship Program, has financially supported and mentored 425 girls like Aissatata through their high school years. In 2004, 344 of them -- 82% -- passed the high school exam, which is double the national average of 41%.