This last Tuesday we heard from Gem Munro of the Amarok Society, pictured. The Amorak Society provides educational programs in Bangladesh and Pakistan and is now starting a Canadian project as well. Gem’s wife Tanis Munro was the recipient of the QE II Diamond Jubilee Award in 2012 in recognition of her significant contributions and achievements.
Gem said that there are millions of children around the world in families that are too poor to send them to school. This is especially true in the slums of large cities in places like Bangladesh and Pakistan. The normal approach of addressing this problem is to build and staff schools, but it has not been successful in these poverty stricken areas. Many years ago, Gem and Tanis decided to try a different approach. Their idea was to teach mothers first and then have these same mothers go home and teach five children in their home the same lesson they themselves had just learned. The Amarok group closely monitors the progress of the mothers and also that of their their home based schools. In turn, many of these children then go home, of their own volition, and teach their families the same lesson. At the time they were told that this approach did not have much hope of success, as their plans would be interfered with by the slum landlords, the corrupt local police, the traditional muslim men or the local gangs of extremists. After eleven years of setting up schools of mothers in the slums these naysayers have been proven wrong and their approach is proving to be very successful. They have been able to have a big effect on the lives of many women, children and their associated families. In particular, the children have been given a path in life that gives them hope for a better future.
The program starts by teaching the very basics such as how to hold a pencil and moves on from there. They learn to read and write in their own language and then learn English as well, as this is the language of the educated in their country. Each mother then goes home and teaches the lesson to five children from her neighbourhood at a time of day convenient for them.
Many of the children in these poor areas must work to help their families survive, so holding the school at a time that does not interfere with their work is important for them. It is common in these countries to marry off eleven year old girls to thirty five year old men, so they end up with a lot of widows with children to support. The mothers have a very difficult time making ends meet so they nearly always enlist their children to work with them. These families end up as captives of their own poverty and the cycle renews with each generation. The school also teaches life skills to these mothers and they find that as they become better educated they make better choices both for themselves and their children. They do not have more children than they can support and do not marry off their daughters at such a young age.
Gem presented the stories of three children whose lives have been changed by their schooling. Aki, a young girl who helps her widowed mother clean homes during the day and attends a neighbours school in the evening. Meen, an eight year old girl whose mother had too many children to support so she ‘gave’ her to a wealthy family as an indentured slave. Meen attends school after work, and then goes home to her family to teach them the lesson she learned that day. Finally, Siubo an eight year old boy, who works long hours operating a tea stall, who attends school after work as well.
Amarok is also starting a new initiative in Canada to give more educational options to people living in isolated poor northern communities. Gem and his wife started out teaching in the far North and think they have a pretty good understanding of the problems faced by the people in these communities. They plan to provide short intensive training to prospective young people from these communities, who will take what they have learned back to their communities and teach it to others in turn. Rotary has always been a big supporter of Amarok and they are calling on us once again to support them both for their work abroad and in this new initiative.