On a four-hour visit to Mali on Friday, United States First Lady Laura Bush said she was ”touched” by the African country’s effort to educate its young people.
Mali was the last stop on the former schoolteacher’s tour of Africa, which also included visits to Zambia, Mozambique and Senegal — all countries that have benefited from US Aids funding.
Bush was accompanied by her daughter, Jenna.
In Mali’s capital, Bush praised the US education initiative in Africa, which has provided approximately $600-million to the continent’s schools.
Along with Mali’s First Lady, Toure Lobbo Traore, she visited the Nelson Mandela School, one of many institutions that has benefited from American dollars.
Inside a classroom, she sat alongside children attending a mathematics class. After, Jenna Bush offered presents to the students.
The larger focus of Bush’s tour was Aids. In Senegal, she picked vegetables and handed out mosquito nets to emphasise that fighting Aids in Africa also means tackling other widespread afflictions in Africa, such as malnutrition and malaria.
In Mozambique, she announced a new, $507-million aid package to fight the disease, while in Zambia she visited churches to speak about the importance of abstinence, as well as the role of faith in healing. — Sapa-AP