Mother Centers International Network for Empowerment

The German model of Mother Centers, created in the late 1970s in Germany for stay-at-home mothers who felt isolated and marginalized in their childrearing tasks, has spread over the years in a spontaneous, bottom-up dissemination process into 20 countries with very different economic, social, cultural, and political conditions. The Mother Centers International Network for Empowerment (MINE) was founded in 2000 as a networking tool to understand what was behind this process and to harness its potential. Just prior to the German model, Mother Centers were also created in the United States, independently and without knowledge of each other. The two models have much in common but also have key differences. The U.S. Mother Centers are also members of MINE.