Why We Teach Mothers
On the basis of decades of practical success in disadvantaged communities in Canada and abroad, we have come to believe in the power of mothers to effect lasting improvements in their families and in their communities.
Worldwide, there are over 70 million primary school-aged children unable to afford school. We believe that there is will never be enough money to build schools for all of these children. Empowering their mothers to become their teachers is an innovative, effective way to address this long-standing problem. Our Mothers of Intention projects, undertaken with a local women's organization, educate mothers to educate their families and neighbourhoods.
If you teach a child. you teach a child. If you teach a father, he uses his new knowledge to gain a livelihood outside the home. But, if you teach a mother, you teach a family.
If you teach a mother, you teach a family.
If you teach 5 mothers, you teach a neighbourhood.
It is well-known that the educational attainment of a mother has a direct correlation to the educational attainment of her child, for several reasons:
- a mother will apply her knowledge directly to the benefit of her family;
- when you teach a mother, a culture of education is created in the household;
- educating mothers has the most immediate effect on bringing the birth rate under control;
- educating a mother elevates her position within the household and establishes in the upcoming generation the value of teaching females and an assumption of gender equality;
- it most effectively introduces health information into the family;
- mothers educated by a compassionate organization will act to moderate potential extremism in her children.
Uneducated mothers are a liability to their children's education
Uneducated mothers act against the scholastic success of their children, both in passive and not-so-passive ways.
We operate in regions where women, through social and religious convention, have traditionally been barred from educational opportunities; if we wish to maximize the educational opportunities of the children, we can help by overcoming the educational restrictions imposed on the mothers.
Mothers demonstrate the greatest commitment to our projects
Within the social strata in which we operate, women are often still the primary homemakers (if such a term can be applied to the maintenance of tiny, impossibly-crowded slum dwellings), while their husbands often assume fewer familial responsibilities, scrabbling for a livelihood (and socializing) outside the home; women and mothers are better able and more inclined to carry on with their own education as another part of their maternal responsibilities.
Within their cultural context, women are more likely to have developed the strengths of patience and perseverance necessary to the long-term success of our projects.
Mothers impart their learning directly to their families
It is in the nature of a mother to use her talents and skills to the direct benefit of her family; a father is more likely to employ his skills to earning a livelihood, which may be less immediately effective in permanently breaking the cycle of ignorance and poverty.
When we educate mothers, they not only directly import education into the families, they establish a culture of education in their children and entrench the practice of learning.
Mothers don't leave
When we educate, say, a slum-dwelling teen-aged boy, he will, understandably, seek to use his educational advantage to escape his circumstance. How could we ever expect or counsel otherwise?
Mothers, however, tend to stay where they are, applying their learning to their existent circumstance, even when the education has led to a woman's entrepreneurship.
Educated mothers have higher expectations
The higher the educational level she achieves, the higher the expectations she has of herself and her children, the more determinedly she will work to reach them.
If you teach a mother...