Country-Wide Education
Solve Poverty
“I think this is a guy who wants to make a difference,” said Warner Woodworth, the chairman of the Ouelessebougou-Utah Alliance, who has worked closely with Samake. “He’s seen that the current system doesn’t work — the corruption in Africa, the poverty in Africa, the ineffectiveness of aid from the U.S., the U.N., Europe, those things aren’t really solving the problem. So he’s saying, ‘Let’s look at some other models. Let’s find ways to build economic self-reliance from the bottom up instead of the top down.’ ”
Stamp out Corruption
Improve Local Governance
© Yeah Samake 2012
Privacy Policy
Endorsed by Utah Governor Gary Herbert
Yeah Addresses a Group of Supporters
Where I Stand -
Stand Against The Old Ways
- Provide Principle-Centered Leadership
- Insure Efficient Use of Scarce Resources
- Stamp Out Corruption
Political Platform-
- Food Sufficiency - Irrigation, Clean Water Supply
- Education - Caring for Teacher, Active Learning Curriculum, Distant Education
- Health - Infrastructure building, Training, Telemedicine
- Economic Development - Security Guarantee, Promote Foreign Investment
Yeah Samake was born in a poverty-stricken village in Ouelessebougou, Mali, the eighth of 18 children, to a father who never learned to read but vowed that Samake and his siblings would get an education.
“That was my father’s vision, that it is through education that we can break the cycle of poverty. He himself has never been to school and because of that he imagined there were so many opportunities that he missed in life,” said Samake, now 42. “He said his family would go hungry, but they would not know the darkness of illiteracy.”
Today, Samake is the mayor of Ouelessebougou and a Brigham Young University graduate who runs a Sandy-based foundation that is finishing construction of its 15th school in Mali. Now he is running for president of the West African nation on a platform that is, not surprisingly, centered on improving education in his homeland.
-- Salt Lake Tribune Apr 17, 2011