Literacy

Contact:

Combating illiteracy has been a major focus of Rotary International since 1986 – and for good reason. UNESCO estimates there are over 800 million illiterate adults in the world and about two-thirds of them are women. Millions more are functionally illiterate, without the reading and writing skills necessary for everyday life.  Basic education and literacy is one of the Foundation’s six areas of focus. Everyone has the right to learn to read, write and enjoy the power, pleasures and independence of being literate. For some the journey will be easy, for others it will take much hard work and unfortunately for approximately 18 percent of today’s world population it will.

Rotarians can help by:

• Developing programs in the community. Talk to the literacy professionals, welfare organisations and others in your communities who see the effects on people of low literacy skills and will have ideas about what you can do.
• Changing this requires a multi-focus effort from government, the education and welfare system and those who care within local communities. But, every time a child is touched by a piece of wonderful literature, the situation improves just a little. Can your club help needy local families bring books into their homes
• The ability to read, write, and do simple maths is critical for the well-being of individuals in any society. International Literacy and numeracy projects allow us to make a real contribution to building nations and reducing poverty. Work with another organisation by sponsoring an international project.
• Let’s celebrate literacy and the efforts of Rotary clubs everywhere. Special emphasis should be a feature of every clubs program during Rotary Literacy month in March. We also ask clubs to celebrate International Literacy Day on September 8th each year.

Resource Rotary Literacy Rotary Action Group (lirag)