Vancouver Sun: 2008 April 11
BY BRENDA LE CLAIR and CYNTHIA WHITAKER
Imagine reaching the age of 60 without knowing how to read. Suddenly, your husband loses his sight and you’re the only one around to work out the labels on his prescription bottles, along with the bills and bank statements which he always took care of.
When Connie DeMelo found herself in this situation, she turned to the staff at her local library in Castlegar. From knowing only how to write her name, DeMelo now writes poetry, uses a computer and, making up for the time she could not read to her own children, reads to her grandchildren as often as possible.
One million adults in British Columbia do not have the literacy skills they need to fully participate and succeed in today’s world. While some can barely read or write, a great many others do have some literacy skills, but not at the levels required for creating opportunity and sustaining a prosperous, inclusive province.
When B.C. focused on addressing this urgent issue — and the government set the goal of making B.C. the most literate jurisdiction in North America — it was recognized that improvements in literacy skills don’t just happen through individual effort. Communities also play a vital role.
Research tells us that the conditions for learning that prevail in our communities are enormously influential on individual success. From Internet access to recreation facilities, from neighbourhood organizations that people can participate in to workplaces that provide training, the strength of community supports matters to the lifelong development of essential skills.
Armed with this insight, and with financial assistance and planning support from 2010 Legacies Now, more than 225 communities now have grassroots planning tables to find out what local people need, identify existing assets and gaps, and develop plans to benefit the whole community, from infants to seniors. These tables bring together a surprising variety of partners with a stake in improving literacy — not just the schools and colleges, but also the RCMP and justice system, health providers, businesses, food banks, cultural centres and many others, including libraries like the one that was so important for Connie DeMelo.
Next week, the Council of Ministers of Education is holding a nationwide forum to raise awareness of the literacy challenge. Each of nine host cities across the country will lead on a different theme. Appropriately, B.C.’s is “communities working together for literacy.”
Sharing the promise of our community-based approach with the rest of Canada is a wonderful validation of the energy and commitment that is mobilizing for literacy in communities province-wide. Learning happens in all kinds of situations and throughout life, and learners need a diverse range of services that respond to individual circumstances. Community-based learning is flexible and responsive. Supporting communities to continuously review what is available and what can be improved in a variety of contexts is powerful and effective.
The community-based approach allows input from the ground up, tailoring learning opportunities to help people participate in local community life. The community infrastructure provides a variety of doors to learning, so that people can get the skills they need in ways that work for them. From adult literacy work in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside to workplace literacy training in Fort St. John’s booming energy sector, community literacy development is empowering people to take control.
The literacy infrastructure emerging in B.C. encompasses provincial, regional, district and community coordination, as well as professional development and related capacity from Literacy BC. But rather than the conventional “top-down” pyramid of responsibility, the community perspective encourages us to see community literacy leaders at the top, responding directly to learners and drawing upon a robust network of support.
Connie DeMelo was one of hundreds of literacy learners, practitioners and community partners interviewed in the run-up to the CMEC conference. Stories of inspiration and success abound — from the 12-year-old Invermere boy discovering a latent love of reading through one-to-one tutoring, to the homeless Vernon man in his 60s working with computers for the first time, to the Chilliwack parents participating in adult education while their children take pre-school in the room next door.
The community is where learning happens. B.C.’s communities are getting it right — giving real meaning to our understanding that literacy is everyone’s responsibility.
