Global Partnerships for Education

Since 2008, Lecturer and Director of the MAT Program, Linda V. Beardsley has been working with the Maranyundo Initiative, a group of Boston area women interested in education in the developing world.

Their website introduces the viewer to the story of the partnership between these women and the Benebikira Nuns of Rwanda to build a school in that country. The story begins in 2000, when Sister Ann Fox of South Boston, a leader in Women Waging Peace, collaborating with Senator Aloisea Inyumba of Rwanda, reached out to women in the Boston area after a meeting at Harvard's Kennedy School on education in conflict zones and women's issues in the developing world. When women in Boston asked what they could do to assist Rwanda, a nation emerging from the shadow of genocide, Senator Inyumba replied, "Build us a school for girls completing primary school that will prepare them for taking leadership in Rwanda.

Many of Ms. Beardsley's colleagues at Tufts University, especially in the Education Department and including the Center for Engineering Education and Outreach, have collaborated to bring teacher enrichment and curriculum ideas to the school. Pearl Emmons, the Multimedia Specialist in the Education Department, has worked with the teachers at the school on using video and technology to enhance their teaching. She has also made videos to capture the educational perspectives of the school and the voices of teachers, students, and parents, who express their confidence that the education of girls is the key to building a vibrant nation. You can view one of these videos below.

Using the narrative of the founding of the Maranyundo School as a case study, Ms. Beardsley has developed a new course, The Global Educator: Education in Post Colonial Africa. Students use the story of Maranyundo School to analyze the challenges and rewards of working in a developing country by considering the many incidents and sociopolitical realities that influence educational institutions. Through offering this course, the partnership between Tufts and the Maranyundo Initiative adds an academic component that shares this global venture with Tufts students.