“Educate a Woman … Educate a Family.”
Mercy Learning Center of Bridgeport, Inc. provides basic literacy and life skills training to low-income women using a holistic approach within a compassionate, supportive environment. All women are welcome without regard for race, religion, color, creed, sexual orientation or national origin.
In 1987, Mercy Learning Center opened its doors to low-income, undereducated, marginalized women in the Bridgeport community. From the beginning, the goal has been to break the intergenerational pattern of poverty and illiteracy through education and empowerment.
MLC reaches this goal through these defined objectives:
- to facilitate a community-based, holistic, women’s educational program fostering undereducated (without a high school diploma) females into confident and competent women.
- to improve literacy skills (including: health literacy, employment skills, financial literacy, and STEM) for women of the Bridgeport community with the goal to broaden their employment opportunities.
- to improve the status of women and increase female involvement; both as learners, teachers, organizers and responsible citizens of their own communities.
Central to MLC’s mission and motto (Educate a woman…Educate a family) is the belief that women who learn to read and write, not only, gain self-esteem, become self-sufficient, and reach their full potential as: a parent, an employee and a community member, but, literacy also has a lasting effect on their children’s education. The National Institutes of Health reiterates this belief, “…programs designed to improve maternal literacy skills has a direct effect on the child’s academic success.”
Visit www.mercylearningcenter.org for info, photos, videos and stories.
637 Park Avenue, Bridgeport, CT 06605 • 203-334-6699
UMCM Contacts: Lynn Abbott and Quintin Brantley