When Jo Altilia decided to do something to improve Toronto, she felt that the way to go about it was through women. "In order to make change in the community," she says in her Regent Park headquarters, "you must educate women and girls." So like Toronto's very own Oprah or Greg Mortenson, Altilia founded Literature for Life, an organization that engages young mothers in social change and leadership through reading.

Over ten years, she has expanded the program to five reading circles and two writing circles that meet at shelters all over the city on a weekly basis. Participants also produce two magazines, including Yo Mama, as well as various cultural events. Here, she talks about the program, and why mothers are the key to improving any community.

Julia Belluz: Tell me about Literature for Life.

Jo Altilia: We run reading circles programs that promote literacy as a family value. A lot of the young women that we're working with [aged 15 to 21] find themselves pregnant and drop out of school in grade nine or ten. So it's challenging for them to find education or employment opportunities. They're very often living in shelters and they don't have family support. So we meet with them once a week, and we read books. Our facilitators who lead the groups -- mostly writers or poets -- pick out themes in the books that are empowering for women and offer opportunities that allow them to have conversations.

What kinds of books do you read?

We start with The Coldest Winter Ever by Sister Souljah. For a lot of women, it's the first time they've ever actually read a book but pretty quickly, they identify themselves as readers. The books always have a female heroine that represents a different ethnic group, or different places in the world where women have had to overcome adversity. We start with straight narrative, but soon, they're reading more and more complicated things. By end of year, they read The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill.

You wanted to help women, but why did you want to do it through reading?

I used to be a teacher, and I read a lot. I have always been a reader. I think it opens a whole world, and when you're living in poverty in certain neighbourhoods, the world's pretty small. Also I think there's something about finishing reading a book that makes you feel like you're a capable person.

But instead of focusing on young women in general, you decided to target young mothers. Why is that?

I grew up in a house where everyone read. Being in a family of readers encouraged me to read, and I've seen that a lot of kids don't have that encouragement. So while we work with the young mothers, it's really about their children. How do we help the children? By supporting the moms and giving them these opportunities so they learn self-confidence, self-reliance, self-actualization. They learn to construct language, so they can become advocates for themselves. If you can't be your own advocate, you're stuck.

Is there a particular book or heroine that inspired you?

The first book I ever read stuck with me forever -- Wuthering Heights. The whole love story and the drama, the abuse. There's a lot to think about. Now as an adult, I love the characters in The Red Tent. They are my favourite. It's the story of the movement from a matriarchal religion to a patriarchal religion and how that impacted the women. The girls in the reading groups also love the book.

Is that the book that resonates most deeply with your readers?

No, that would be The Coldest Winter Ever, which is the first book we read. For some, it's the first book they have ever finished. It's street literature, about a woman whose father is a drug dealer. First of all, it's straight narrative -- it's very linear. For an inexperienced reader, that's important. The situations that come up in it really open the conversation for talking about personal issues with the shelter but doing it in third-person. You can project on the character situations that you're experiencing.

So the reading group doubles as a sort of group therapy?

Yes, the women can sit-down and talk about some issues they may have and they do that in a general way so they don't have to feel that their baby is going to be apprehended.

What kinds of skills are you trying to develop in these young women?

In the group, they are learning to have a fulsome discussion where others' opinions may not be in agreement with their own. And they learn to frame arguments. They learn to have a conversation where they can respect and listen to opinions. They learn that there's a way of delivering language so you will be heard. We have some excited conversations, but not angry conversations.

What's next on the agenda for you?

Right now, we're doing a project that will encourage the women to start writing a blog under the guidance of a facilitator. We're also having our program evaluated by the University of Toronto. We're working with the Fleming Laboratory, which studies mothering, and they're going to be researching to find out how our program impacts mothers and mothering, and the development of family literacy and self-advocacy. There is some significant research that shows that reading narrative builds social and empathy skills. I would say we already know that.

Julia Belluz is a Toronto-based writer, editor, broadcast story producer, and researcher.