Gem Munro was a guest speaker at our December 3 Rotary meeting. He is the Director of The Amorok Society which supports women in slum areas in countries such as Bangladesh. He explained that the school system, where it even exists in the country, is rated as the worst in the world. Millions of kids live with their families in slums and conditions just too poor to go to school and the traditional approach of 'just build a school and they will come’ does not work due in part to the poverty but also to the controls of the extremist regime. Thus 1 in 2 children are able to receive at least a sub-standard education while 1 in 3 receive no education at all.
Hence the novel and highly effective approach by The Amorok Society which recruits mothers, and educates them to teach groups of 5 or 6 children at a time in their own homes.
We heard the story of one such student, Shuli, who our Club has been sponsoring. Shuli embarked on the program to improve the lot of her own two children in the face of an extremely negative response from her family and, especially her husband who finally relented with the proviso that “when she found out that it wouldn’t work, that she would abandon all thoughts of the program and never mention it again.” Shuli went on to surpass the limitations imposed upon her by her husband. We had the pleasure of watching a video of one of her students reading a letter, written in English, as proof positive that the child now had proficiency in the written and spoken word of a second language.
In the program, young girls learn together with young boys to create a firm foundation for the future and the song “We Shall Overcome” has become the anthem of the program showing the courage of the women and mothers. As Gem expressed it, “the best expression of love is education”.
We were then introduced, via video to Poppi, Shuli’s daughter who has made it to the age of 19 and remains unmarried (not typical). In fact she has been serving as a teacher's aide to her mother but had to resign recently so she could focus her time on pursuing her university studies – a success story if ever there was one!!
Then after a Q and A session during which Gem allowed that personal safety for himself, his family and participants in the program is a very real and daily threat but he reward is the fact that the greatest support for the program now comes from within the slums AND from at least some of the husbands who stand around to school doors listening AND learning too!
President Nancy thanked Gem for his update and he was advised that our club will provide a $1,000 donation for our continued support of this program.