In Benin, 69% of women are illiterate (UNESCO, 2018). Even today, and particularly in rural areas, when a family cannot send all its children to school, priority is given to boys. ‘Culturally, it's the man who has to work, bring home money and therefore be educated, while the woman, for many, therefore doesn't need to go to school,’ explains Kokou Megnini Opekou, Food and Economic Security Manager for Louvain Coopération in West Africa. These injustices are still particularly prevalent in Benin. To combat them, Louvain Coopération is offering literacy courses to adult members of cooperatives so that they can learn to read, write and calculate in their local language. By 2020, thanks to these courses, 89% of literate women can actually read and write in their mother tongue.
In addition to learning the language, these courses also enable women to better manage their household finances and their economic activity, but also, and this is probably the most important thing: they improve their self-esteem and their understanding of the important issues in their community. ‘Things are changing. Women are beginning to assert themselves socially. They are realising that they can participate in the family and community economy and that they are capable of doing what men do!’ concludes Kokou.