Club Executive Supports “Mothers of Intention” Literacy Project
Posted by John Borst
on Dec 12, 2010
At the December 8th luncheon, Literacy chair, Rtn Suzanne Borst announced that the executive had approved her proposal to support the Amarok Society’s “Mothers of Intention” program.
The Amarok Society is a small Canadian charity founded by Tanyss and Gem Munro to assist in their work to bring literacy education to the poorest of the poor in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
The Amarok Society is a small Canadian charity founded by Tanyss and Gem Munro to assist in their work to bring literacy education to the poorest of the poor in Dhaka, Bangladesh. With a motto, “Educate a Mother; Change the World”, the Munro’s who went to Bangladesh to assist in the improvement of the State education system and discovered that due to poverty and cultural factors woman and children in the lowest economic stratum of society were among the most illiterate in the entire world, even worse off than the worse areas of sub-Sahara Africa.
Tanyss Munro, with a PhD in International education from York University came to the task with expertise gained from bringing education to remote regions of Canada’s Arctic and recognized that “Mothers” were the key to success in areas where no schools would ever be built and the belief that such poor were unteachable and unreachable.
A Partnership with Rotary International
As a result of a change meeting in Belleville, Ontario and a hastily prepared meeting of Canadian and Bangladeshi Rotarians, held in a cafeteria at the Montreal International Rotary Conference in the spring of 2010, a new partnership was born.With the assistance of Rotary District 7070 Literacy Chair, Joan Hayward, Zone Coordinators Roger Hayward (for Canada) and Safina Rahman (for Bangladesh) and Rotary International Literacy Coordinator Richard Hattwick, an Agreement in Principle was made between the Rotary Club of Belleville, Ontario, Canada and the the Rotary Club of Midtown Dhaka, Bangladesh with Amarok Society for the purpose of supporting specific initiatives in the poorest slums of Dhaka.
This tripartite agreement has the Belleville Rotary Club assisting Amarok Society by raising awareness of their work and raising money to support their Mothers-of-Intention programme. The Midtown Dhaka Rotary will administer funds from Dhaka to ensure proper use, accurate record-keeping and transparent accountability.
This will allow Amarok Society to maintain and expand its work to many of the 300 slums in the poorest city in the poorest country in the poorest region in the world.
Dryden Rotary Meets the Amarok Society
Rotary Club of Dryden Rtn Suzanne Borst and her husband John Borst discovered the Munro’s “Mothers-of-Intention” program when they walked into a Chapters book store at St. Vital Centre in Winnipeg, Manitoba where GEM Munro was promoting his book “South Asian Adventures with the Active Poor”. They repeated the experience the next day at the McNally Robinson Book store where they also met Tanyss and her daughter Grace.
The following video is an interview with the Munro’s at the McNally Robinson store produced on the same day by Shaw Cable TV in Winnipeg.
On March 30th, under the leadership of Rtn Suzanne Borst, the Rotary Club of Dryden will be holding a dinner to raise $2,500.00 to sponsor a trainer lead “school” of 5 mothers and 25 children.
For a fact sheet on the Amarok Society LINK HERE