Club presidents are encouraged to share the main points of the following message with all members of their Rotary clubs. Do a Rotary Minute by covering the 10 numbered headings. Or take 5 minutes to cover the headings plus the sub-headings. Or, make up your own version of this message.
All members of every Rotary club should be aware of the following nine facts about literacy service projects.
1. Literacy is one of five service project priority areas emphasized by RI President John Kenny.
a. The other four are HEALTH AND HUNGER, PUBLIC IMAGE, WATER, and YOUTH SERVICES
b. Each of these priority areas is serviced by a resource group whose members are appointed by President John
c. The RI Literacy Resource Group has 60 appointed members including 52 Rotarians appointed to serve Rotary’s 52 zones. The name of your zone’s literacy coordinator can be found at www.rotary.org/literacy.
d. The zone literacy coordinators work through their district counterparts to get information to the clubs and to find out what clubs are doing.
2. Clubs can undertake service projects in any or all of three categories:
a. BASIC LITERACY – The ability to read, write and compute;b. FUNCTIONAL LITERACY – The knowledge and skills needed for an adult to be a successful worker, citizen, parent and human being;
c. CHARACTER LITERACY – The knowledge and skills needed by an adult to behave ethically in all aspects of life and to adopt Rotary’s service above self view of a meaningful life.
3. Literacy projects are relevant to all of Rotary’s Four Avenues of Service.
4. Vocational Service literacy projects provide youth and adults with tools for ethical behavior, meaningful employment and the Rotary vision of the meaning of work (Service Above Self; They Profit Most Who Serve the Best).
A. Four-Way Test projects are the highest priority because this is one literacy tool which is unique to Rotary. Rotarians have a social responsibility to share the test with the rest of the world.
B. Sharing the Four-Way Test begins by making children, youth and adults aware of it. That can be done by handing out individual copies of the test and placing Four-Way Test posters and banners in schools and other public places.
5. Community Service literacy projects address literacy problems in the local community in one of three ways:
a. First, helping schools and other literacy agencies do their jobs by providing financial support, in-kind gifts and personal services of Rotarians;
b. Second, helping children, youth and adults who have been unable to attend or succeed in school by organizing and supporting out-of-school remedial projects. Examples are a Concentrated Language Encounter class for slum children; a Computer - Assisted Literacy Project for dyslexic children; an Imagination Library project for children in families where the reading of books is not otherwise possible.
c. Third, promoting a local community culture of educational excellence and inclusion. Projects such as student and teacher recognitions, scholarships, contests and competitions are examples.a. For example, a 3-H grant from TRF enabled three districts in Brazil to implement a Concentrated Language Encounter project which trained 1,900 teachers who then taught about 72,600 adults and children to read and write. District 6900 in Georgia and District 7080 in Ontario, Canada were the international partners. The Brazilian districts were 4250, 4560 and 4760.
b. International projects don’t have to go through TRF. For example, the Rotary Club of Hobe Sound/Port Salerno in Florida, USA celebrated International Literacy Day, by conducting a school supply drive for school children in Haiti. The club provided supplies requested by the school master in Haiti.
7. Club Service literacy projects involve membership, public image and participation in special days or months related to literacy.A. International Literacy Day (September 8th) is one of those special days
B. Rotary’s Literacy Month in March of each year is one of those special months.
8. The RI Literacy Resource Group encourages all clubs to earn the District Literacy Award by completing five literacy projects.
a. Any five literacy projects will do. Numerous ideas are provided by the RILRG literacy awards brochure available on-line (www.rotary.org/literacy). b. Last year there were three Rotary districts in which every club earned the District Literacy Award – D-5000 ( Hawaii), D-6900 ( Georgia) and D-3830 (the Philippines).
c. D-5000 has done that for three straight years and is on track to do it again. So far this year every club in that district has done a dictionary Project (community service), celebrated International Literacy Day (club service) and provided 4-Way Test posters to Hawaiian schools (vocational service).
9. The RI Literacy Resource Group provides numerous on-line resources to help clubs identify and implement literacy projects. The three Basic literacy sites are:www.rotary.org/projectlink
10. Every member of your club has just made an acquaintance with opportunities for service in the area of literacy projects. Perhaps your club is already involved in a significant number of literacy projects. If so, congratulations. If not, let the past few Rotary Awareness Minutes be a catalyst for you and your club to expand your involvement with literacy projects.
The Future IS in Your Hands.
Richard Hattwick
January 2010
PHOTOS:Mombasa City, in Kenia; Helsinky City, in Finland; Camen and Julio Sorjús (PDRI), Spain; Safack Alpay (Turkey) and Henrique Pinto (Lisbon International Institute); Ricardo Fabregat (Spain) and Henrique Pinto (Literacy Break Out session in Lisbon International Institute); Safack and Denise Alpay, Henrique Pinto and so many friends (District Assembly, Istanbul), Turkey
Dear Governor
ResponderEliminarI sent you one of these days important material from our RI World Literacy Coordinator, Richard Hattwick.
This time, as I promised, I enclosed also the translation into Portuguese of those documents, to be sent for the Literacy responsibles in your District, in the case it is necessary, for
the clubs in Portuguese Language Speaking Countries.
And I send you too this afternoon an example of D 1970 Census Actions on Literacy, as Richard asks me to, that you can use freely, according to that documentation, to motivate your Clubs and Rotarians, if necessary.
But this turn, I dare to ask you too a special favour, please give me some feed back information on Status of Art in Literacy in your District.
Thanks a lot, in advance.
Please, again, have a HAPPY NEW YEAR 2010.
Henrique Pinto
Zone 20 Lieracy Coordinator
It is not only in Finland that people qualifies literacy as basics literacy. Because of that way of thinking they commonly tell that do not need it. Effectively, in 1900, the alphabetization in Norway, for instance, other Scandinavian country, was about one hundred per cent.
ResponderEliminarThe UNESCO Conference at Baku, Azerbaijan, three years ago, showed us clearly that European illiteracy (especially functional illiteracy), was very high, touched every country, from 15 to 65 % of adult continental population.
We can also wonder, if the best literate continent, with compulsory basic school from the late eighties (19th century), has such a scenario, what will be the literacy landscape in other latitudes?
But there are also lots of Europeans, mainly in universities, that consider literacy the whole efforts beyond basic literacy (excluding this one).
It is important to consider the perspective of literacy as it appears in this article by Richard Hattwick, growing from basics to functional, vocational and character literacy.
It is also important to have in mind that Senior Universities, as they are considered now in Portugal, for instance, growing up, slowly, mainly to vocational Literacy, started in Sweden, in the sixties (20th century), maybe this can be one reason why Nordic European Rotarians do not have a large point of view about literacy needs in their countries in the first decade of a new century.
Henrique Pinto
SENIOR UNIVERSITIES IN PORTUGAL
ResponderEliminarIn 2001, the Rotary Club of Chaves (D 1970) initiated this process, leaded by the Rotarian Areias, to create a Senior University. The aim was to reach a higher level of literacy among elderly people (50 years old and more), based on the principle that literacy (but basically intellectual activity, reading, informatics, writing, playing music), potentiated by certain activities like embroidery and gardening, for instance, and physical activity, can induce longer lives (more years to live) and better quality of life (more better years to live.
Nowadays medicine and science in general confirm entirely this assumption from the nineties. On the other hand, the illiteracy (the gap in ability to decode a non generalist newspaper or magazine or TV program, the capacity to make small arithmetic operations, the general culture, to speak a second language, and so on) has an enormous rate among young and elder workers in Europe. In Portugal this rate is also high.
Therefore, Senior Universities can fulfill this important role. So, they are growing essentially to Vocational Litteracy.
Thus, the traditional Universities (which main goal is to graduate young adults in higher education but it is also to understand the communities, its development, etc.), started looking to this Rotary activities in Chaves University of Trás dos Montes e Alto Douro, and University of Minho). Immediately the Rotary Club of Felgueiras opened its Senior University, also in the north of the country.
The D 1970 Governor 2002-03 gave an enormous publicity to so important project on Literacy, what was responsible for awareness and spreading of this kind of Literacy Action.
This movement has grown a lot. Now in Portugal there are 17 Senior Universities and a Senior Conservatory, in District 1970, and one Senior University in District 1960 (Rotary Club of Sesimbra), created and administrated by Rotary Clubs, cosponsored by Rotary Clubs (Maia and Gondomar) and partially helped by the Rotary Club, like Senior Conservatory in Leiria (single in the World).
Since the very beginning the Senior Universities had only volunteers working there (a main principle), since retired people until active professors in the Universities. On the other hand the scope of students enlarged. Now there are many students under 50 years old. Usually students do not pay classes but only special activities, like traveling in the country or abroad. The subjects taught in Universities are also many more than in the beginning.
Now the Rotary clubs have an important positive impact on literacy over elder people and adult vocational training (the country has 100% alphabetized youth) in north of Portugal. Many of these institutions have also orchestras, choirs, small musical groups, theater, dance, Fine Arts and other artistic leisure activities, addressed directly and continuously to close 10000 people.
Henrique Pinto