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

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