Kayes is where I was born and raised. It is the second largest city and the first capital city of Mali. LDKK is the only high school in the city and it was one of the oldest and ugliest high schools in the country. All students that graduate from junior high school will be sent there. When I graduated from junior high, I started to think if I had to transfer to one of the high school in the present capital city or stay in the LDKK. To transfer to the capital could be a big challenge because I was going to miss my mom, family, and friends. Since I’m the Benjamin of my mommy you can imagine how much I love her and how much she loves me. I was pretty sure that I could not handle that transfer, and I was also too young to go away from my beloved mommy. So going to LDKK was the only option left not to miss my mom. But if I went there, I will definitely end up with no knowledge at all. Of course that was not what I was looking for. Imagine been the one and only high school in a big city like Kayes, isn’t that weird to you? It is a horrible thing to me because there is always a surcharge, lack of teachers, no discipline at all, and so on. See, this last option was even a bigger challenge than the previous one. Of course I love my mom, I didn’t want to miss her nor my friends, but I didn’t want to be a part of that school too. So what should I do, quite the school? No, that was the last thing my mommy ever wanted to hear. For that time on, I started to think that I had to find a way to make a change. That change could be building a new school or improving the education system by adding new quality teachers and building some new classrooms. Whatever that changes might be I had to attend to LDKK and lead up a revolution. And my mommy was going to be so proud of me. Now, my mind is already made, I was going to LDKK. But I was nobody how I could convince the students to follow me since they didn’t know me or dissuade the government to do some thing for my high school because I’m a part of it now. It doesn’t usually work that way. During my first year, I wasn’t really active because I was trying to focus on studies since we had lack of teacher and the non discipline was the biggest issue. There was always a strike sometimes for claims, sometimes for power, or just for name. But nobody seemed to face the real issues. AEEM was leading those strikes. AEEM stands for Association of the Students of Mali in French. Any body who has a basic knowledge on the 1991 revolution in Mali should know what AEEM really is. AEEM’s up rising had helped the country to make a term on 24 years of the military dictatorship. In other word AEEM led the country to the democracy, because they destabilized the military government with their everyday strikes. Since AEEM has that much power, the government does whatever it can not to mess with them. AEEM has its branch in every city but the bureau is actually in Bamako the capital city, that’s where all those troubles come from. Bamako initiates it, and it’s executed every where else even it is not clear whether it’s right or not. I was in 11th grade in this same condition and things was always getting worst, in a point that it was affecting the primary schools and so on. So I decided to take action may be to prevent AEEM from tearing down my city education system and by doing this I should be able to dissuade parents and the authorities to do something to save my school and the city’s education itself . It was a Friday morning when I took over the niche. I stood up on the top of the fountain I was surrounded with about 4 to 5 hundred students. They were all staring at me because I was new to most of them. But some of them were a little nervous, and I could understand that one too, because they didn’t know what I was going to come up with. My introduction was very brief, and people were getting really pissed off because I introduced myself as nobody. But it didn’t stop me from heating the iron. My goal was to clarify every one that I wasn’t challenging any body’s authority but I was just making a point on the current strategy which was tearing down our education system. The General Assembly was ended with applauses and cheers, because it was none less. AEEM members were really pissed off because they weren’t expecting those cheers. They thought I was going to be rejected by the crowd. They took over and condemned my act. And they also warned that any body who challenged them again was going to be a death wish. Then they decreed a 48 hours strike just to measure their strength. And one of their articles says that after the General Assembly there is no class. I’d quickly consulted some close and competent friends of mine; the objective was to reinforce my support. By joining forces with them I could also easily wipe out the AEEM dictators and achieve my goal. We came up with the idea of creation a radical movement which is called MPC (movement of taking conscience). When I introduced MPC with its new methods to handle school affairs and keeping our education system from down fall, it was quickly appreciated and approved by a very large number of students. One of our methods is to fight for our right while we are studying. This method prevents the school and the city from a blank year. And another one banishes all inopportune strikes. Do you really think that AEEM was going to sit and watch? Of course they didn’t. There were always clashes between the parties and lots of people were injured. I escaped from two attempt of murder in the school and outside the school. I attributed it to AEEM and its supporters which they always deny. Things were not getting any better because the confrontations were disturbing my new strategies. Bamako quickly sent some members from the national bureau just to give AEEM their authority back. They were also rejected by the majority. But that was not stopping their minority from clashing me and my followers. So what should I do to keep AEEM from aggressions and disturbing the classes? Then I decided to meet the governor of the region. The colonel Mingoro Kane accepted me in his office, it was a Monday afternoon. When I entered his office, my big surprise was that he welcomed me as a hero. And he also congratulated me for ma good initiatives. But I quickly noticed that my presence in his office was not for getting congratulation because I didn’t do anything I can be proud of. My goal was not achieve yet. We discussed the present issues. I presented him our grievance. He approved it. But he finally concluded that the government was not taking any action until the fighting was totally over, and we reintegrated the classes. I promised him to make a term on those clashes and reintegrated the classes as he said. And I also made him promise to consider our grievance. The only thing he could not guarantee was to build a new high school. The following things were cited in the grievance: building a new school that was dropped, adding new teachers, building new classrooms, getting a new laboratory because the old one was useless, repainting the school, get a new chair etc… Since I left the governor’s quarter I quickly provoked an urgent meeting between AEEM and MPC. During the meeting I decided to dissolve MPC and I asked the leaders of AEEM if it was possible to modify the composition of the bureau by referendum. They agreed. The vote was organized two days later and I was elected General Secretary of AEEM and their old G.S became my vice G.S. This made a term on a 4 months clash. Since I was leading AEEM I had the right to execute or reject the command from Bamako. Now I could abolish their old strategies and putted my new ones on the track. If I wanted to spread out some information I didn’t have to organize a General Assembly because that was going to cancel all the classes. So all I had to do was to handwrite it or type it then gave it to my Secretary of Information he then presented it to the school principle to put stamp on it then he hang it to the information board. The governor has kept his promise because after 2 straight months in the class, the engineers and constructor workers could be seen in the building. The following year we had a hand full of new teachers, we also had new classrooms, and we had a laboratory and an improved library with new books of course. The principal also introduced new rules that make the school more disciplined ever. I could not imagine how I saved the city from a blank year. A blank year could paralyze the entire city. Every body could study peacefully. I was so proud of my school, and my beloved mommy was so proud of me.