Mali Empire


Bridges to Prosperity USA

Project Slide Show

Location: Near the community of Sikoro
Bridge Sponsor:
Bridge Designers & Construction Coordination:

River Name:
Bridge Name: Sikoro Bridge
Bridge Span:
Bridge Type: Vehicular
Population Served by Bridge:

Bridge Story: The Sikoro bridge project is part of the University of Southern California Program called “Problems Without Passports.” One student studied abroad in Mali and the community of Sikoro requested her help in building the bridge. The community has been trying to raise the money to build a bridge over the river for over 5 years by building mud bricks once a month and selling them to masons in the area.

About the Bridge

Many people wonder what a bridge has to do with public health and why we might be putting our efforts into this rather than, say, bringing medicines or building a health center.

During the rainy season, the village of Sikoro is cut off from everything, including the health center, the middle school, the market and the road to the capital by a river. It floods an enormous area and makes it nearly impossible to access these sites even in the direst of situations. This has an enormous impact on health, development and economy in the village. So, building a bridge will do more for this village than just bringing medicines would and building another health center would simply undermine the efforts of the one already there.

Here are just some of the direct medical impacts of a bridge in Sikoro:

• Lower mortality due to Malaria. The river cuts off access to any sort of medical help during the highest, most dangerous part of the malaria season, so having it there would provide access to malaria treatment, which is especially dangerous to children under five.

• Reduce maternal and child mortality. The floodplain prevents pregnant women from getting access to prenatal care, and makes it impossible for them to travel to the clinic to give birth. Having a bridge would during the rainy season.

• Provide needed vaccinations. Village health workers cannot access the area during the rainy season in order to vaccinate children and to distribute other items such as mosquito nets and chlorine for wells.

Other indirect impacts include:

• Improved nutrition during the rainy season. This is due to a variety of factors. The first is that the women in the village would gain access to the market during the rainy season. This means that they could sell crops and use the money to purchase more nutritious food for their families. In addition, vendors from the city would be able to get to Sikoro, selling food and other important items.

• Better Education in the village because children would be able to attend middle school. This would improve health by giving more children access to the information taught in school and also by providing more economic opportunity for them in the future.

• More economic opportunity. Working and trading in Sikoro depends on access to the larger town and its market. Sikoro does not have a market of its own so during the rainy season men cannot travel to other villages to work and women cannot bring crops to sell at market.

• Lessen Environmental Impact Women in Sikoro depend on cutting down wood as a main source of income, especially during the rainy season when they cannot sell crops. This is directly affecting the expansion of the Sahara and desertification. Not only would having a bridge give them better options than chopping down wood, we will also be constructing a community garden which will provide women with more crops to sell at market, rather than chopping down trees.

Click the USC Africa Health Initiative project to find out more.

The USC team is working with engineers from PLAN International to design and build a vehicular bridge crossing for the community of Sikoro, Mali. The USC team is part of the Bridges to Prosperity University Program and will be completing construction during the summer of 2010.