Mothers' Associations (Associations des Meres d'Eleves or AMEs)

  • P Project/Program

? Activity Status: Unknown

Key Information

Within the context of the McGovern-Dole Food For Education Program in Benin, World Education provides training in gender mainstreaming to its local NGO partners, who in turn introduce a gender lens within their work with parent-teacher associations (PTAs), training them in how to mainstream gender into PTA structures and activities to promote equity and combat discrimination. In Benin, World Education has been instrumental in the establishment of Mothers’ Associations (AMEs), which have become parallel structures to Fathers’ Associations (APEs) within PTAs. For almost two decades, World Education has worked with AMEs/APEs through a participatory approach, which includes and empowers all community members, especially women, to identify challenges and implement practical, local solutions. Today, there are over 630 AMEs in Benin, which have been formally integrated within PTAs and recognized as a national model for women’s empowerment and participation in school governance. The AMEs have played and continue to play a key role in promoting girls’ education by organizing community awareness campaigns on the importance of girls' education; conducting community censuses on school-aged children and supporting families in obtaining birth certificates, necessary for school registration; combating forced and early marriage; organizing a girls' mentoring program to keep girls in school; negotiating with families to ensure an equitable division of household chores among boys and girls; monitoring teacher conduct in the classroom to ensure girls' inclusion and protection from violence and abuse


Lead Implementing Organization(s)

Location(s)

Sub-Saharan Africa

Benin

Activity URL

Not applicable or unknown

Government Affiliation

Unknown

Years

1975 -

Partner(s)

Local NGOs, Alafia, Derana

Ministry Affiliation

N/A

Funder(s)

United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) within the McGovern-Dole Food For Education Program (2014-2018; 2017-2022)

COVID-19 Response

Unknown

Geographic Scope

National

Meets gender-transformative education criteria from the TES  

Unknown

Areas of Work Back to Top

Education areas

Attainment

  • Primary completion
  • Primary enrollment

Other

  • Early childhood development
  • Other

Other skills

  • Rights/empowerment education
  • Social and emotional learning

Quality

  • School quality
  • School-related gender-based violence

Skills

  • Literacy
  • Other academic performance-related

Cross-cutting areas

  • Community sensitization
  • Early/child marriage
  • Empowerment
  • Gender equality
  • Mentorship
  • Nutrition
  • Other cultural practices
  • Sexual harassment & coercion
  • Social and gender norms and beliefs
  • Violence (at home, in relationships)
  • WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene)

Program participants

Target Audience(s)

Girls (both in school and out of school), Parent-teacher associations/school management committees, Youth

Age

1 - 18

School Enrolment Status

Some in school

School Level

  • Pre-school
  • Lower primary
  • Upper primary

Other populations reached

  • Boys (both in school and out of school)
  • Community leaders
  • Fathers
  • Mothers
  • Other caregivers
  • Religious leaders
  • School administrators
  • Teachers - female
  • Teachers - male

Participants include

Not applicable or unknown

Program Approaches Back to Top

Community engagement/advocacy/sensitization

  • Community-based monitoring (e.g. school report cards)
  • Community mobilization
  • General awareness-raising/community engagement
  • Mothers' clubs
  • Parent Teacher Associations (PTA)
  • Technical assistance/capacity building to civil society organizations or governments

Curriculum/learning

  • Increased availability of learning materials

Food/nutrition

  • School feeding

Mentoring/psychosocial support

  • Peer mentors

Social/gender norms change

  • Engaging parents/caregivers of students or school-age children/adolescents
  • Media campaigns
  • Work with community leaders
  • Work with religious leaders

Teaching

  • Hiring more teachers (both men and women)
  • In-service teacher training – pedagogy general
  • Teacher incentives
  • Teaching materials (e.g. lesson plans, curricula)

Tutoring/strengthening academic skills

  • Literacy - in the classroom
  • Literacy - outside the classroom

Women's empowerment programs

  • Advocacy/action
  • Empowerment training
  • Leadership training

Program Goals Back to Top

Education goals

  • Improved academic skills (literacy and numeracy)
  • Increased enrolment in primary school
  • Reduced absenteeism

Cross-cutting goals

  • Increased agency and empowerment
  • More equitable gender attitudes and norms

Additional Information Back to Top

Primary Contact

Barbara Borgese
World Education, Inc.
Senior Program Officer
barbara_borgese@worlded.org