Committee Update: Literacy
The Sunrise Literacy Committee has an action-packed year ahead. September marks the start of a new school year, and what better time for Rotarians the world over to celebrate and raise awareness about literacy and basic education. We will kick-off the month raising awareness about the importance of developing good literacy skills from a young age, and will celebrate International Literacy Day (8th September) with volunteer readings at local schools and dictionary-donations to Year 7 students in local schools.
It is essential to help our children develop good literacy skills whilst at school so that they can make the best of future employment and other opportunities in their adult lives. Low literacy levels drive inequality in a population and have been linked to poverty and higher levels of crime. Throughout September, we will raise awareness and encourage members of our community to get involved, perhaps by becoming a volunteer paired-reader for LIFE (Literacy is for Everyone) for the school year.
LIFE is a charitable organisation (formed by a group of Sunrise Rotarians and Chaired by PP Woody Foster) which seeks to significantly increase literacy levels in the Cayman Islands. LIFE run a number of literacy programmes in the public schools and will be holding its signature corporate fundraiser, the 2015 LIFE Scrabble Scrum on Tuesday 29th September at Abacus, Camana Bay. Corporate teams will go head to head with little more than a Scrabble board, letter tiles and their speedy word-forming skills to hand. Our MC, Rotarian Patrick Kreitlow, will throw in some new challenges and keep the teams honest. We hope to see lots of Sunrise Rotarians involved in the competition, whether participating in a corporate team or volunteering as a judge/scorer. The KPMG team were the worthy 2014 Champions – will they successfully defend their title next month?
District Governor Felix Stubbs and First Lady Carla Stubbs recently learned all about Sunrise’s literacy plans for the year during their visit, and expressed a special interest in the concept of the Scrabble Scrum competition. A number of schools in Jamaica have Scrabble groups and First Lady Carla was keen to see if a Scrabble Scrum competition would take-off there. Sunrise’s Literacy Committee hopes to assist its fellow Rotarians in Jamaica to host their first inter-school Scrabble Scrum competition this year. LIFE also hopes to host its second Inter-High School Scrabble Scrum competition in March 2016.
This year, alongside the annual District 7020 Butterfly Storybook Competition, the Buy-A-Kid-A-Book fundraiser, and the annual joint-Club Fred Speirs Interschool Debate Competition, the Rotary Sunrise Literacy Committee will be ‘adopting’ Bodden Town Primary School’s library for the year. We will assist the school with organising the library books, doing volunteer readings for the students and donating books, bean-bags and other items to improve the library environment.
It’s going to be a fun and busy year for the Sunrise Literacy Committee! All Club members are encouraged to get involved – please contact Literacy Director Su Mander for further information. You can also visit LIFE’s website www.life.org.ky for information about their literacy programmes.
