International Literacy Day 2020: What a success!

Each 8 September since 1965 has been International Literacy Day, a day designed to bring awareness to the vital importance of literacy to both individuals and societies. It is also a time to put a focus on the plight of illiteracy in many countries of the world.

Over 750 million adults in today’s world are illiterate, and that amounts to about 20 percent of the world’s adult population. But this plight of illiteracy is not even close to evenly distributed. Two-thirds of that number are women, and regions where poverty and discrimination against women abound have the lowest national literacy rates.

International Literacy Day is a time for showing concern for improving world literacy. It is a time for literacy fundraising campaigns and special media awareness campaigns on the subject of literacy.

On Tuesday, 8 September, SHAPE observed International Literacy Day. Some of our SHAPE Trainees who participates in the Education Programme at SHAPE participated in a sponsored read and this activity was aired on SAMS radio. Two of our high dependent clients with severe learning difficulties also participated in a literacy activity which was videoed and will be uploaded to SHAPE's Face book page.

Phil Mercury, Education Tutor at SHAPE introduced each Trainee and their sponsored read activity.

Phil said that he listened to the recording on SAMS radio on Tuesday evening with an objective mind and was impressed by not only the high standard of work but by its performance and entertainment value. "Well done to all those individuals involved. You should be justifiably proud of yourselves!"

Funds raised from this event will be used to help resource the SHAPE classroom and education programme.

Sponsors who made donations via on-line banking with Bank of St Helena, SHAPE raised £195.00 & from individual sponsored papers submitted by the Trainees & clients who participated in the sponsored read/literacy activities, the amount of £95.20 were raised. In total then, £290.20 were raised from the sponsored read.

We thank all our sponsors for their support and generosity and it is heart-warming to know that these sponsors see the vital importance of literacy, in that literacy learning is lifelong learning and that adults who lacks these skills are given the opportunity to acquire them.

The United Nations has embraced International Days as a powerful advocacy tool & SHAPE is committed to advocating for the disadvantaged groups on St Helena & will continue to observe International Literacy Day and we continue to offer literacy programmes to our disabled and vulnerable Trainees.

Thank you once again for supporting SHAPE! Marianne Young-Crowie - SHAPE Manager