When you educate a man, you educate a person – but when you educate a woman, you educate a family, a generation, even a whole nation, argues Nigerian-born priest Alvan I. Amadi My mother was one of 12 children raised in a deeply religious but poor household in south-eastern Nigeria. She was the seventh child and the first surviving daughter, preceded by five sons and one daughter who died as an infant.There is no doubt that she was loved by her parents, but she was only a girl who would some day be married off to another man’s home. This was the prevailing mentality of the time, so much so that the education of women and girls was considered to be of secondary importance.The priority was the education of the boys who would one day carry on the family name. There was even a mi