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Summer internship in Mali teaches a rising senior about children´s rights - and the benefits of slowing down
Frannie Noble ´08 plays with children in Mali, where she completed a summer internship with a children´s rights organization.
August 06, 2007
At first, it was difficult for Frannie Noble ´08 to learn to slow down - to spend time sitting in a courtyard making small talk with passersby and having tea with the 15 members of her host Malian family - while she interned for a children´s rights organization in the country this past summer.
"It bothered me at first to be living with a Malian family that would sit outside the front door for the majority of the day," she said. "I wanted to go to town, meet up with friends and explore."
Soon, though, Noble came to appreciate the slower pace of life in Mali, and learned that just by making small talk in a courtyard she could improve her spoken Bambara and French, learn about social interactions and simply observe the Malian way of life.
A rising senior from Cohasset, Massachusetts, Noble wanted a nontraditional study abroad experience. After attending the School for International Training (SIT), she landed a summer internship with the Coalition des ONGs Africains en Faveur des Enfants (CONAFE), a children´s rights organization in Bamako, Mali.
A student in the Toor Cummings Center for International Studies and the Liberal Arts (CISLA) certificate program, Noble had studied the United Nation´s Convention on the Rights of the Child and the implementation of the ratified recommendations regarding the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of children. Interning with CONAFE and working with the organizations president, Dr. Moussa Sissoko, enabled her to examine the convention´s effect in a real-life setting.
"I was able to see local level implementation, the importance of national and international coalition building, and how a single country´s commitment to children´s rights is part of a larger whole," she said.
During her internship, Noble interviewed Malian CONAFE members and researched Malian education, child labor, child trafficking and children´s right to participation. She later compiled a report on these issues, their history and the policies adopted by the government, as well as new projects that might be successful in Mali. This report, written in French, will stay on file in Mali and her recommendations and research may be distributed to other non-governmental organizations.
While in Mali, Noble even found time to volunteer twice a week at the state orphanage in Bamako. Volunteering, she said, reminded her of the real children behind the laws and policies. "I play and laugh with kids who have no concept yet of children´s rights. At that stage it´s not about equal access to education and the right to freedom of religion - they care that someone wants to play with them, pick them up and give them one-on-one attention," she said. "Although my interest in children´s rights remains strong, I know now that it is the children and not the policies that mean the most to me."
After graduation, Noble hopes to further pursue her interests in international issues concerning children and families with graduate studies in social work and law.
- By Claire Gould
For more information contact: Amy Sullivan (860) 439-2526; amy.sullivan@conncoll.edu