Plenty of female students bring their babies with them to college on the Ivory Coast.
But recently, one mum’s little girl just wouldn’t settle. Mum tried bringing her out of the classroom time and again, to no avail.
That’s when her professor Honore Kahi decided to intervene – and he did the sweetest thing you could imagine. With the mum’s permission, he wore the baby on his back as he paced the classroom!
And incredibly, the little one calmed down straight away, soothed by his pacing back and forth. She eventually fell asleep, and her mum was incredibly touched and grateful.
“My student told me she was very touched by this gesture, and that she was very surprised because there is generally some distance between students and teachers,” Honore told the BBC.
Naturally, the students in his class were shocked by his kind gesture and uploaded the adorable snaps to social media. The post with the photos received over 27,000 likes and many have hailed him a ‘hero.’
But Honore remains humble.
“I’m the teacher, and teachers are human beings – we are not robots,” he said.
As for his babywearing abilities, he said that it’s a common skill in Africa, but that men often don’t do it because of gender stereotypes.
“Men are able to do certain things, and usually, it’s the social representations…society that prevents them from doing certain things,” he said.
While he knows it won’t be easy, Honore wants the young mums in his class to get a good education, encouraging them to have the “fighting spirit.” “Fighting is the meaning of life, because life is not easy.”
