Rotary and Literacy
Posted by Bill Molesworth
Doug Ewan said that our new Int'l President had chosen to emphasise 3 areas in his year in office. He wants all of Rotary to work on promoting its public image and, especially, to assist two of Rotary's development specialties - water, health and hunger and Literacy, which Doug went on to discuss in more detail.
Rotary has always been involved in Literacy - building schools, helping educate teachers, buying books and promoting training and there has been some progress but there are still a billion illiterate people on the planet and as many more that are functionally illiterate. 95% of these people are in developing countries and 50% of them are in India or China, which increases the complexity of helping them. 50% of the population of Africa is illliterate, which just adds to the problems that continent faces. Two thirds of those that are illiterate are women, for a variety of reasons, mostly cultural.
Rotary Int'l had some project ideas which are just suggestions, and hopes that local clubs will pick up on these or come up with their own that will help build nations and reduce poverty.
- Apply for a grant to partner with a Club to work with illiterate women
- Develop a literacy centre in a Library here or abroad
- Deliver an information session to a business breakfast or other meeting about what's happening in workplace literacy
- Develop satelllite schools
- Promote a public awareness campaign
- Develop a 'Read to the Children' program
- Donate books
- Promote Reading Hours at local Libraries
- Provide child care for parents attending literacy training
- Develop an award system for kids reading the most books
Doug had some examples of success starting with, close to home, his father's effort to gather over $2.5 million worth of books, to package them by subject and ship them abroad to countries in Africa. There's a program in Bangladesh called Concentrated Language Encounter. There are people volunteering to teach with the Navjiot Literacy Campaign in India. There's a 3 year co-operation agreement between Rotary and the Int'l Reading Association which is a global teaching assoc.
Rob suggested that all these things are worthwhile but that there's a need right here at home. Maybe Rotary could work with M.A.R.C. or with L.G. Bartlesman's effort to send books north.
Terri thought that our Club should contact the Club in Turkey that we twinned with in Past President Jim's year and find the best way to help them, esp. the Muslim girls who are being deprived of an education because of cultural bias.
Doug thought both these comments deserved further study. He added that the meetings in Jan. would be devoted to information sessions like this and hoped that the membership would make every effort to attend and to learn more about what we are doing and what we can do to help.
Rotary Int'l had some project ideas which are just suggestions, and hopes that local clubs will pick up on these or come up with their own that will help build nations and reduce poverty.
- Apply for a grant to partner with a Club to work with illiterate women
- Develop a literacy centre in a Library here or abroad
- Deliver an information session to a business breakfast or other meeting about what's happening in workplace literacy
- Develop satelllite schools
- Promote a public awareness campaign
- Develop a 'Read to the Children' program
- Donate books
- Promote Reading Hours at local Libraries
- Provide child care for parents attending literacy training
- Develop an award system for kids reading the most books
Doug had some examples of success starting with, close to home, his father's effort to gather over $2.5 million worth of books, to package them by subject and ship them abroad to countries in Africa. There's a program in Bangladesh called Concentrated Language Encounter. There are people volunteering to teach with the Navjiot Literacy Campaign in India. There's a 3 year co-operation agreement between Rotary and the Int'l Reading Association which is a global teaching assoc.
Rob suggested that all these things are worthwhile but that there's a need right here at home. Maybe Rotary could work with M.A.R.C. or with L.G. Bartlesman's effort to send books north.
Terri thought that our Club should contact the Club in Turkey that we twinned with in Past President Jim's year and find the best way to help them, esp. the Muslim girls who are being deprived of an education because of cultural bias.
Doug thought both these comments deserved further study. He added that the meetings in Jan. would be devoted to information sessions like this and hoped that the membership would make every effort to attend and to learn more about what we are doing and what we can do to help.