The Amarok Society.

G.E.M.Munro who is from Vancouver, has devoted his life to improving educational opportunities for disadvantages people across Canada and abroad.

He is currently a director of Amarok society, a registered Canadian charity that provides education programs to the extremely poor in Bangladesh.

He lives and works in Dhaka the capital of Bangladesh. When showing the ambassador of Turkey around their slums the ambassador was moved to tears, the slums were so awful.

They set out to improve education in the slums.

They moved all four of their children to Dhaka.  He commented that Vancouver is one of the top most livable cities in the world and Dhaka is one of the worst and poorest.

Most teaching aids go to the villages rather the cities, as it is too big a task.

He decided we can’t change the system so we set about teaching mothers to be the teachers.  This is innovative thinking.  These are the poorest Muslim women. They truly felt they were locked in their way.

Corruption is a big problem there with the police and Govt officials.

We asked the question, are these slums impenetrable?

Most Mothers that we started with, had a command of about 600 to 700 words in their own language.

We have a command of around 15,000 words.

We teach English, Math, Health and Hygiene.

We teach conflict resolution and birth control. We help them make sense of the world.

There are 172 million people living in Bangladesh.

Each Mother must teach 5 children.

Most marry at age 11 or 12.

Our minds are designed to learn.  If we don’t we have depression or despair.

We give their lives purpose. 

The women we teach to teach are transformative.

There are 22 million people living in Dhaka.

We asked if there was a Rotary club there.  There wasn’t one, there is 40 of them!

We are now partnered with one of them.

Rotary shares our sense of urgency

We believe in building bridges.

The speaker was thanked by Davinder.