Thursday, May 17, 2012

Children's Education Foundation wants to encourage literacy

                                  Literacy is important for each person as well as their nation.

To be literate gives a person many more employment opportunities. They are able to learn new skills and subjects any time as well. A literate person has high self-esteem, is more Independence, knows their rights, and is unlikely to be exploited. They are an asset to their country.

A CEF goal is to have a mobile library. We hope this year we can bring this into reality; it won't take much to do this. We need a hardy motorbike, a good helmet and waterproof for the librarian with solid waterproof panniers, and many books! I mention the word waterproof a lot as we have a long wet season with heavy tropical rains.

All the impoverished children we have given books to so far didn't own a book and there were none in the home as all their parents are poor to have books, but also most are illiterate. The children all know how to read as they have learnt at school. When each child has received a book they immediately have started reading and didn't put their bookt down for quite some time. Most of the children we help with education live in isolated communities; school isn't very near for most, let alone a library. A mobile library makes sense versus a library for each of the 11 communities we work with in Quan Nam.  
Some interesting and important points other organizations have made about literacy:

"Did you know that 796 million people in the world today cannot read or write? That’s one out of every five adults, and most of them live in developing countries." Room to Read

 UNESCO says about literacy
..." the ability to identify, understand, interpret, communicate, compute and use printed and written materials associated with varying context. Literacy involves a continuum of learning in enabling individuals to achieve their goals, to develop their knowledge and potential, and to participate fully in their community and wider society."


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