Functional Literacy; Improved Communication Empowers Communities
Dedicated to the memory of Peter Gzowski*
 by
Phil Bartle, PhD

Module Introduction.

Documents Included in this Literacy Module:

 Why Participatory Literacy?
 reasons for designing a custom programme for each community;

 Literacy and Empowerment, in stronger communities, members write and
 read;

 Literacy Principles, design your own programme; and

 Workshop Handouts, links to the eighteen principles. 10k

 Design a literacy programme that is functional, practical, useful
 and relevant

 Not every mobilizer gets the opportunity and challenge to design
 and present a programme of functional literacy. There may be no
 perceived need for it in the community, or there may be available
 programmes that need not be duplicated.

 If the desire is there, however, and is not being met by others, you
 have a chance to contribute to an honourable and useful
 endeavour. This training module aims to guide you in custom
 designing an introductory and basic literacy programme for any
 audience of participants who do not know how to write and read.

 It is unorthodox and it does not give you a finished recipe, but
 encourages you to be sensitive, informed and aware of your clients,
 and design a programme, both its content and its methods, on the
 basis of what is relevant, practical and useful. The module begins
 with a justification for taking this unorthodox and untraditional
 approach, Why Participatory Literacy? which presents reasons for
 designing a custom programme for each community

 There is an umbrella document at the core of the module,
 Empowerment and Literacy, in which it lists
 eighteen principles in designing your programme.

 That list is also available as a Workshop Handout, and links to each
 of the eighteen principles as single-page handouts. Each handout is
 suitable for a short discussion or for small group role playing, in
 a workshop for mobilisers and others learning how to design a
 literacy programme.

 All eighteen are also combined in a single (but longer) document
 that you can use as a reference, Literacy Principles. Stroll though
 this module, and its eighteen principles; you can use it yourself,
 or as a training aid for a workshop on how to design a functional
 literacy programme.

 --» «--

 - -
 *Note The late Peter Gzowski (Gzosky, Gzowsky) was a broadcaster (radio
 host) on CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) who was well known for
 bringing Canadians from this geographically huge but wildly disparate
 country to an understanding of each other and to appreciate the culture
 and arts of each other. As an unpaid hobby, he dedicated his spare time to 
 reaching and helping non literates to learn how to read and write, and to
 love doing it.

 If you copy any text from this site, please link it back to
 www.scn.org/cmp/

Updated: 2003 April 22