Women’s Global Education Project Executive Director Amy Maglio
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
Many of you have probably heard Margaret Mead’s famous quote. Amy Maglio, Founder and Executive Director of the Women’s Global Education Project and one of Yoga Trek’s regular students, is a living example of how one person’s efforts have already changed the world. Her organization has allowed the trajectory for the lives of many girls in West Africa to be forever altered by fulfilling its mission “to provide access to education and to develop training programs that empower women and girls to build better lives and foster equitable communities.” Amy is able to do what she does by engaging the people around her in helping her to fulfill a vision that began more than 14 years ago during a three-year tour of duty with the Peace Corps in Senegal, West Africa. She is also able to do what she does by carving out time and space for yoga (“every Saturday no matter what!”), bringing peace to the constant juggling and a sense of presence to her life with her family. Read more to hear about Amy’s organization, its mission and how you can join in her efforts, taking your yoga “off the mat.”
Amy’s story starts like many, growing up in Queens, NY, and then heading to Amherst, Massachusetts, to pursue a college degree. After graduating and residing back home for a year, Amy continued her education at American University in Washington, DC, obtaining a master’s in Political Science. After starting to work for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Amy realized that in order to really do meaningful work in her field, she needed more hands-on experience. What better way to do so than to join the Peace Corps. She left behind her then-boyfriend-now-husband Robert, a local Oak Parker, and entered what would be perhaps the most impactful stage of her life to that point.
Amy was assigned to work in Senegal, West Africa, and lived in a small rural village with no water or electricity for the three years. She had the privilege of living with a family and had a little sister, Khady, who was nine at the time and who looked out for Amy. “She always told me what was going on when others were laughing at me [because I didn’t understand something],” Amy recalls. “When I had to leave, I had lots of thoughts for how to support her.” Khady was told that at age nine, she was “too old” to attend school. Amy’s instincts were to work hard to figure out how to ensure Khady obtained an education, enabling her to create a life in which she could make a positive contribution to her community and perhaps move beyond the poverty in which she lived.
Through her efforts to support Khady, Amy discovered that much research has been done showing that investing in girls’ education is a key to ending poverty and positively contributing to a country’s economy. “The World Bank, UNICEF, and others show that girls like Khady are better paid in the workplace when they are educated. In many cases providing girls with one extra year of an education increases their wages by 10 to 20 percent,” Amy states. She goes on to recite several key factors that undeniably state the case for ensuring girls and women are educated:
- Better able to protect themselves against diseases like HIV/AIDS;
- Less likely to become a victim of violence;
- Better nourished family;
- Less likely to become a child bride or die in childbirth;
- More likely to educate their own children; and
- Able to become more active in political, social and economic decision-making.
It’s really a no-brainer right? That’s what Amy thought, too. Yet, more than 24 million girls in Africa are out of school and only 20 percent go to secondary school.
Instead of being satisfied with Khady’s eventual success (she has learned to read and write, graduated from elementary and middle schools, completed three years of vocational training, and now works and trains to become a nurse), Amy came home to the United States with a bigger dream: to somehow ensure that each individual girl in West Africa has the ability to fulfill her right to obtain an education. “Over the long term,” she says, “this is one of the most sustainable things we can do.”
Amy moved to the Chicago area to be near Robert and worked in various jobs related to international development. Her heart remained in taking on the issue of women’s education and she was inspired in 2003 to start the Women’s Global Education Project aimed at “helping women to help themselves,” she says. “I started talking to people – friends, family, professional contacts – and found out how to go about [starting a nonprofit.] I convinced three friends to be my first board members,” Amy shares. Along with her board members and other interested allies, Amy spent the first year starting up the organization, creating a set of bylaws and a mission statement, and starting to solicit donations from friends and family members.
In its first year, WGEP provided 10 girls with scholarships to attend school, providing financial support for everything from tuition to books to mosquito nets. “Our first success was learning from that first experience. We realized that while six out of ten girls stayed in school for their first two years, we were not satisfied with the results. We worked with our partner organizations to find out more about why the girls weren’t staying in school and learned that there were many reasons that had nothing to do with funding and books,” Amy explains. As a result WGEP developed a more comprehensive program that provided community outreach to families; health education; parent workshops to foster better support for their daughters while they are in school; and more. “We now have a greater than 90 percent success rate. We think that’s due to the fact that we are addressing all of the reasons, enabling us to change minds and attitudes about the importance of sending their daughters and how to best support them,” Amy states.
As WGEP started up, Amy gave birth to her now six-year-old daughter Gia. A couple of years later she began practicing yoga asanas (she’d been practicing karma yoga – “selfless service” – for many years whether she knew it or not!). Amy loved the way her yoga practice brought balance to her life. “I feel like I enjoy helping others, being responsible for my family, my house, my husband, and my job. I realize that I also need time in there for myself. Yoga is the thing I do really for me.”
Amy carves out time every Saturday to attend Nicole Sopko’s 10:30 am class at Yoga Trek. “I love that Nicole makes it challenging but also light. She’ll giggle and say, ‘Try your best!’ and then the next thing she will say is, ‘Now stand on your head.’ She challenges you but also makes it light so you have that space to try it. With her I have been able to stand on my head, do backbends, and more things I never thought I could do. In Nicole’s class she gives me the space to try things that are hard, and try it and try it and then after that, it finally works!”
Amy kept going to yoga throughout her second pregnancy, giving birth to Robbie 2 ½ years ago and returning to yoga when he was just two months old. As a mother of two who works full time, Amy’s days are not very typical, ranging from preparing for her recent presentation at the United Nations to managing her children’s school schedules to holding cross-continent conference calls and more.
Amy finds that yoga provides many benefits to surviving a multi-dimensional life. “I first went for relaxation and strength. After class I end up mentally in a better place,” Amy shares. “I think I’m often trying to think about what I have to do, where I am going to go next, all the things I have to get done. When I go to my yoga practice, it reminds me to just be there in that space in that moment. I try to carry that out in other things that I must do. When I’m with the kids and that’s the time to be with them, even though I have another million things to do, I try to enjoy that time with them without getting too far ahead of myself.”
The other million things to do that Amy references most often have to do with the constant efforts being made to ensure the success of WGEP and the communities served by its mission. As of last year, WGEP provided 240 scholarships to girls from 46 schools and 58 villages in two regions; counted more than 3,700 people in its programs; celebrated their students’ highest retention rates; and honored 30 percent of students within the top five of their classes.
So how does she do it? “I work really hard,” Amy laughs. “And every day I make a list of what I need to do on that day – everything from picking up peanut butter, to making sure I transfer funds to Senegal, to emailing our partners.” She also relies on the support of friends, family members, and colleagues, all of whom pitch in, contributing time and talents to the cause. “One of the reasons I have been successful in my work is that I’ve been able to tap people who find out about what I’m doing and leverage their talents. I have been effective at getting people engaged and taking on a piece. Without them doing it, it’s too much to do on my own.” Amy adds, “I really wouldn’t be able to do this without my parents and my in-laws. Whenever I need them they come over and watch my children. That’s been a huge support.”
WGEP also relies on help from others, seeking funds from individuals and organizations to ensure its success. According to its website, “A donation of $25 can provide a girl with after-school tutoring for a month; $300 provides a year-long scholarship to an elementary or secondary scholar; $1,000 provides tutoring, mentoring and other support activities to a class of 20 girls to help them stay in school.” (Follow this link and read our sidebar for more information about the upcoming WGEP annual fundraiser on November 8th.)
Amy remains inspired by the amazing stories that emerge from WGEP’s West African partners about the girls and their dreams becoming fulfilled. “We hear from the schools when we interview them about the goals many of the girls have for their education: one wants to be a pilot; a lot want to be teachers; some want to be doctors. If it weren’t for the scholarship [through WGEP] they would not be going to school.”
Indeed, the world has been changed.
Catch Amy locally at two events (details are available here):
November 3rd: Oak Park Council on International Affairs Benefit dinner at the Carleton hotel, “Girls Count: Iinvesting in Education for women in Africa.”
November 29th: Concordia University, “Gender Inequality and Global Development: The Case for Girls’ Education”
AMY’S FAVORITES:
Yoga Pose: Vashtistasana (Side Plank Pose) and Camatkarasana (Wild Thing). “I am proud of myself for reaching all the way to the floor. I never thought I would be able to do this, it was like one day the floor rose to reach my hands!”
Mantra: “Slowly, slowly you catch the monkey in the tree.” (a Senegalese proverb-translated from Wolof).
Food: Eggplant parmesan or NY pizza
Drink: cocktail – mojito; daily beverage – lemon flavored seltzer
Musicians: Carol King, Sheryl Crow
International Travel Spots: Senegal, Kenya, Yucatan – mexico
Regional Activity: Going to beach at North Avenue; going to Millennium Park with my family
Restaurant: Gaetanos in Forest Park
