Maryland Career Net

Maryland Career Net

Maryland Career Net

Everyone needs a helping hand from time to time. On that theme, a Maryland-based organization called La Main Tendue(loosely translated from French as The Reach Out Hand)is extending a helping hand to disadvantaged women and children in Africa. The Reach Out Hand wants to help assure that the less fortunate in Francophone West Africa have access to basic health services and education. Francophone means French-speaking. Several countries in Africa are former colonies of France and have French as the official language.

La Main Tendue Formed After Founder Sees Rising Poverty In Ivory Coast Homeland

La Main Tendue was founded by Pepita Coulibaly Kragbe who is from the Francophone West Africa country of Ivory Coast(Cote d’Ivoire). Kragbe left the Ivory Coast 18 years ago and currently lives in Silver Spring, Md. Kragbe said that she decided to form La Main Tendue after visiting the Ivory Coast last year and witnessing levels of poverty she had not seen while living there.

It was her first visit back home since she left the Ivory Coast. “When I visited Cote d’Ivoire last year, I saw a lot of children begging for money at stop lights,” Kragbe said. “Growing up, I did not see that much poverty. The poverty has really accentuated since the war.”


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