Dr. Tanyss Munro and her husband Gem Munro have dedicated the past ten years of their lives to battling ignorance, poverty, and extremism by opening schools for mothers in the poorest slums of some of the most volatile countries of the world.

The charity that they founded and direct, Amarok Society, harnesses the power of mothers in the name of peace, teaching completely uneducated women to teach the children of their slums, thus bringing hope, reason and moderation into these desperately poor areas of the world. It is these very same slums that are being targeted for recruitment by extremists, who hope to feed on the ignorance and despair that they believe they will find there. This danger of extremism can only be avoided through compassion and education; in the words of Gem Munro, “If we really mean to create peace in the world, we must stop rattling sabres and start ringing school bells.”

Throughout their careers, the Munros have striven to use the power of education to bring equality and opportunity to the people most in need of it. Before turning their attention overseas, they worked (and continue to work) to improve educational opportunities for aboriginal/indigenous students in Canada, and have achieved considerable success in that endeavour. Now that they are empowering women to teach the children of some of the poorest slums in the world, they are finding equal, if not greater success in improving the lives of the people who so desperately need it.

As well, Gem Munro has become well-known, through more than one hundred speeches per year, as an eloquent and compelling advocate for peace through education, the only possible path to peace.

We, the undersigned, request that you consider Amarok Society and Dr. Tanyss and Gem Munro as nominees for the Nobel Peace Prize for their ongoing work to bring peace, love and equality to the world.

Some quotations from women taught by Amarok Society's schools:

"Our life is full of struggle but we don’t want to break down rather we want to prepare ourselves strongly to face the problem ... The people who cannot read are blind as we were before coming to this school."

"Our teacher ... discusses many other relevant issues to our life like mothers’ health, child development, food & nutrition, health & hygiene, bad effect of dowry and household conflict. Now we understand our mistakes already done but now we want to correct them for our children and neighbors who have a chance to avoid."

amaroksociety.org