The last weeks in Bamako have been exceptionally busy with workshops and learner meetups, bringing a vibrant energy to close out the year. As we wrap up this eventful 2024, we are delighted to share our latest insights and developments from November, along with a special request. 🌟

🎶 November has been tough — we don’t even remember having taken the time for music. But here's a tune that's been grounding us lately: "Eyala" by Richard Bona. Always good to get centered…

What are we building?

Kabakoo is a community-driven upskilling platform designed to allow young people in West Africa to develop the mindset and the skills needed to improve their life in a context of scarce formal jobs.

☀️ November 2024 Highlights

Do you know whom the youth in Mali trust most?

We owe you this one, as by the teaser of our last newsletter. But how did we arrive at that question, actually?

During our 2nd Bamako.ai festival last June, we partnered with some of the most popular Malian social media influencers (all together amassing an impressive 10 million followers!). Our mission for them was simple: help us to get 10,000 youth to register for Bamako.ai. They played their part pretty well, doing livestreams, explainer videos, comedy skits, even dance videos, and so on.

Reality check: while our own efforts brought almost 4,000 registrations, the influencers barely managed to gather 300 registrations! 😮

So we asked ourselves a simple question: if Malian social media influencers are clearly not able to influence the Malian youth to take a simple action, who are the real influencers of the youth?🤔

We first examined secondary data from the AfroBarometer Survey, which includes trust-related data from its recent Mali surveys. However, this general survey wasn't detailed enough for our needs, as it covers the entire population rather than focusing on youth specifically. With only 1,200 respondents across all age groups in Mali's latest AfroBarometer round, we needed to conduct our own targeted survey.

We designed an extensive survey exploring trust and influence in both institutions, people, and media sources. In the survey, it was clearly communicated that we are interested in trust and influence in decisions related to skills building, training, employment, and entrepreneurship. We even included a question to measure respondents’ belief about who has commissioned the survey, as research show that it influences answers on trust in public bodies in more autocratic countries. With more than 1000 respondents from all over Mali, the survey was a hit.

The Army, my parents, and the national TV!

When it comes to institutions, the Malian youth shows a high level of trust in the Malian Armed Forces (FAMa) and the President, while political parties and religious leaders face a major trust deficit (43% expressing no trust at all!).

As for trust in people, parents, teachers, and close friends top the trust charts. Meanwhile, social media influencers? Not so much (45% even find that social media influencers have a negative influence on the youth!).

And when it comes to trust in media, there is a clear winner: surprisingly, the national broadcaster (ORTM) and practical platforms like job sites are the most trusted sources. Meanwhile, social platforms like TikTok and Snapchat, along with international media outlets such as VOA (Voice of America), RFI (Radio France International), and BBC, receive significantly less trust.

As already mentioned above, all the questions made clear that the survey was about domain-specific trust and influence (in the areas of skills building, training, employment, and entrepreneurship).

The results validate our experience at Bamako.ai with the social medial influencers and reveal an interesting insight: while young people massively follow these influencers and even engage with them online, it seems to remain purely in the entertainment sphere rather than any sign of trust or influence. We also discovered that the national media ORTM is the primary source of information — quite contrary to our previous assumptions at Kabakoo!

Furthermore, we have learned that trust is built on direct personal connections as Young Malians trust their parents, teachers, and close friends the most! This confirms our working hypothesis about including parents and relatives into our funnel as psycho-social support for learners. It also echoes our finding from last month about the relationship between having friends at Kabakoo and the decision to invest in Kabakoo training.

Our survey revealed many more actionable insights than we can share in this newsletter. One key finding shows that WhatsApp is the most trusted media platform for institutional communications. We are hence starting to use WhatsApp not only as a communication channel but as a media by launching our WhatsApp channel.

Should you want more insights from our Trust Survey, please let us know, we will be happy to engage in any discussion on the topic.

Our (late) wish for Santa

As the year draws to a close and the season of wishes is upon us, we have one request for you: we would be grateful if you could share anonymous feedback about our work, your interactions with us, or anything else you consider relevant.

👉🏿 You can do it right here: https://www.admonymous.co/michele_yanick_from_kabakoo.

It’s anonymous. Thank you so much in advance for your time and your support in helping us to learn and get better, to do better.

Kabakoo: The only cool club where you get in only if you are not on the list

As you might know, we have integrated a Recruit and Delay control design in our operations. But what does this look like in the daily life of the Kabakoo learning community? Below is a quick video showing the list control at the entrance of a co-learning space before a workshop. As the community likes to joke, Kabakoo is the only party where you get in only if you are not on the list.

Kabakoo Faces

(With over 34 821 registered learners, each month we spotlight a member of our vibrant community.)

Maimouna is the creative force behind Aÿroün, a Bamako-based hair care brand that harnesses ancient hair care products and recipes from the Sahel. Her Kabakoo journey began in 2022 when she was at a crossroads — fresh out of university and facing the all-too-familiar fear of stagnation. She took a leap and immersed herself in the Kabakoo Learning Experience, where she developed a deep passion for storytelling.

In the Kabakoo community, Maimouna found her sweet spot — a space that perfectly balanced the comfort of a community of liked-minded peers with the structure needed to focus on clear objectives and chase big dreams. Beyond picking up technical skills such and digital marketing, value creation, or storytelling, her experience at Kabakoo helped her strengthen her confidence in her abilities and future. Catch her full story here! 😊

Meetings ? 🇫🇷🥐🍵 ☕

If you happen to be in Paris, let's meet for coffee or tea! We (Michèle & Yanick) are currently in Paris, really enjoying the rainy Parisian winter after months under the hot Sahel’s sun. As some of you might know, we are quite restrictive with our travels. This year, Michèle spend 10 months without leaving Mali while Yanick left only for 3 days for a convening in Washington, DC. Our policy is to limit as much as possible the travel opportunities of our founding team to pass on the opportunities to fellow team members and colleagues to get on stage whenever possible. Next year may bring a few exceptions to this policy, as Michèle will likely have several trips planned. We'll share more about this in the coming weeks. 😉

Thank you for reading to the end ! 💜🧡

Michèle & Yanick

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