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To Educate a Woman is to Educate a Nation

 


Eduquer une femme c’est éduquer une nation

I make resolutions. At the start of each year I hear people saying: “ I do not make New Year’s resolutions,” and to be honest, I smile politely and nod my head in agreement but deep down inside I’m judging them! “How can they not,” I ask myself indignantly? Why would one not use the opportunity of this wonderful time of the year when one digit on the calendar changes excepting once in one hundred years when two digits change, to institute at least one or two improvements in ones life or at the very least, change one stinking habit? 


I do confess to making a list of at least ten things I would like to get done every year and yes, one could call it procrastination particularly if one is making the same resolutions at the beginning of each year.

At the beginning of the big COVID Lockdown a friend of mine sent me a two page list of 101 things to do during Lockdown. I was veritably salivating at the challenge! I could hardly wait to start ticking off accomplishments and earn my Lockdown Diploma cum laude until I realised that at least 50 of the things were things I had already done or habitually did on a regular basis. 


Who were these people who needed a Lockdown in order to “Tidy a cupboard” or “Do a puzzle” or “Learn a new language?”


Not that I was being judgey mind you, but there might have been just the faintest inkling of: “When did you not read the book on how not to procrastinate that I did?” 


So with August being Woman’s month in South Africa and I’m not too sure where else this would apply, I thought I would try to do a bit of thinking about a favourite saying of mine and how it pertains to this brave new world in which we find ourselves. 


“Eduquer une femme c’est eduquer une nation” generally ascribed to Dr James Emman Aggrey who is actually quoted as saying: if you educate a man you educate an individual but if you educate a woman you educate a whole nation

Fighting talk, haha, but safe to say, not too many men are reading this blog yet, but what of this “educating a woman” blah blah psychobabble? 


My grandmother taught me that when something was troubling her, she tidied a cupboard. She had lost two husbands and a son and was married to a banker most of her life and a farmer for a few years after she had worked as the secretary of the sheep farming association. 

She had very tidy cupboards. She spoke little, but when she did, pearls of wisdom seemed to drip from her lips. 


I am her namesake and of late I have been wondering, how do I live up to this incredible privilege of bearing my grandmother’s name when she really seemed to have deserved it so much more. 


Stella meaning star. I don’t very often feel like a star. I had what most would consider a good education. I attended no less than five Primary schools and one High School which fortunately for me, gave me the opportunity to indulge my inner dream to aspire to being a star. The only problem was that I was up against some pretty gifted kids and found myself floundering somewhere around the middle most times, singularly unoutstanding to coin a phrase.

I did actually get through some education nonetheless and luckily for me, I’m one of those fortunate people who is able to recognise opportunities and grab them as they fly by but if I think about my “education” in inverted commas, what was it really all about and how the hell am I now magically imbued with the ability to “educate a nation?” 

I panic! I feel like somehow I am letting down a whole nation! The pressure to educate weighs so heavily on me. Where do I start? 


And then, it’s my grandmother’s words: “Tidy a cupboard” One cupboard. Not the whole house. Just one shelf, one cupboard. 


Just one woman at a time. One girl child at a time. 

Teach her to trust herself. Teach her to say “No!”

Teach her to take one step a day towards her dreams

Teach her she is enough

Teach her a man is not a financial plan

Teach her to love her own body

Teach her she is beautiful just as she is

Teach her she is worthy

Teach her the world will not change for her but that she can be the change she wants to see in the world

Teach her to be kind

Teach her it’s ok to be assertive and gentle at the same time


Teach her to be a teacher 

Comments

  1. UnknownAugust 28, 2021 at 3:19 AM

    One day at a time.
    One girl at a time.
    One woman at a time.


    ReplyDelete

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