Ami & the Challenges of Doom

How can you take classroom instruction to the next level while engaging students in meaningful community service? It takes a bit of creativity and an openness to the rising academic trend of service learning. Service learning is a method by which students learn required academic standards for their grade level while participating in a service project that benefits the school and/or local community.

For the third year in a row, my fourth- and fifth-grade students at the American International School of Bamako (AISB) in Mali collaborated with Mali Health – an organization with a mission to reduce maternal and child mortality in resource-poor communities in West Africa – and students from three local schools to create graphic novels on health-related issues. AISB students learned valuable information in science, literacy, math and art, all within the context of a real-world project that benefited the local community.

AISB is a small international school for children and youth ages 2-18 that includes students from more than 30 countries and is based on an American-style curriculum. While instruction is conducted in English, all students also learn French, the primary language in Mali. 

 Each year, Mali Health has suggested a key health issue for the AISB students to focus on. Three years ago, their first graphic novel, The Adventures of Anti-Malaria Man, addressed one of the most serious diseases in Mali. It included information on the identification, prevention and treatment of malaria, but within the context of a superhero story set in the Sikoro neighborhood of Bamako. Sikoro is a peri-urban slum with more than 80,000 people, and is a focus area for Mali Health, as well as the setting for all three graphic novels.

Their second graphic novel, Agents of HEALTH: The Future of an Epidemic, focused on diarrhea and rotavirus. As with the first novel, it included information on identification, prevention and treatment, this time within a science fiction-themed story featuring time travel and again taking place in the local community.

Students just completed a third graphic novel, Ami & the Challenges of Doom: Adventures in Conquering Malnutrition. Nearly two out of five children in Mali suffer from chronic malnutrition. This adventure-themed novel takes a local girl on a quest around Mali where she solves challenges related to the prevention of malnutrition, all based on the WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) philosophy used worldwide.

Commenting on the projects, AISB Director Caroline Jacoby noted, “I have been touched by how deeply our students have been affected by their initial visit to the local schools and community. ... Working in partnership with the local children has helped our students relate on a personal level and form friendships while both groups of students have learned important health lessons that they will remember for years to come.”

One of the strengths of this project is collaboration. Each year, Mali Health organizes field trips for my students to visit schools and clinics in Sikoro. This is where my students see firsthand the challenges faced by local residents.

Students were initially speechless when they saw 60 or 70 students crowded into a tin-walled classroom, or saw homes without windows or electricity or plumbing. This was the first time many of them had ever seen a Malian school or clinic. By the time we returned to our own school, they were committed to these projects and to helping others.