September Is Basic Education and Literacy Month

What is your Rotary Club doing to support this important Rotary Foundation Area of Focus?

Basic education and literacy is one of The Rotary Foundation’s seven areas of focus. We know that basic education and literacy are essential for reducing poverty, improving health, encouraging community and economic development, and promoting peace. ......

More than 775 million people over the age of 15 are illiterate. That’s 17 percent of the world’s adult population. 

Our goal is to strengthen the capacity of communities to support basic education and literacy, reduce gender disparity in education, and increase adult literacy. We support education for all children and literacy for children and adults.

HOW ROTARY MAKES HELP HAPPEN: We take action to empower educators to inspire learning at all ages. 

OUR IMPACT ON EDUCATION: The Rotary Foundation supports education through scholarships, donations, and service projects around the world.

Rotary members make amazing things happen, like:

Opening schools: In Afghanistan, Rotary members opened a girls’ school to break the cycle of poverty and social imbalance.

Teaching adults to read: Rotary members in the United States partnered with ProLiteracy Detroit to recruit and train tutors after a study showed that more than half of the local adult population was functionally illiterate.

New teaching methods: The SOUNS program in South Africa, Puerto Rico and the United States teaches educators how to improve literacy by teaching children to recognize letters by sounds instead of names.

Making schools healthy: Rotarians are providing clean, fresh water to every public school in Lebanon so students can be healthier and get a better education.

" When you teach somebody how to read, they have that for a lifetime. It ripples through the community, one by one." - 
Rotary Club member

 

Consider these facts:

  • If all women completed primary education, there would be 66% fewer maternal deaths.

  • A child born to a mother who can read is 50% more likely to survive past the age of five.

  • If all students in low-income countries left school with basic reading skills, 171 million people could be lifted out of poverty, which would be equivalent to a 12% cut in world poverty.

Rotary clubs all over the world are taking action to enhance basic education and literacy in their communities. Every community has different needs and different opportunities to serve.

The world is making good progress in this area. According to a 2014 United Nations Millennium Development Goals progress report, literacy rates among adults and youths are on the rise and the gender gap in literacy is narrowing. But pressing global needs remain:

  • 58 million children worldwide are out of school.

  • Even after four years of primary schooling, as many as 250 million children cannot read and write.

  • 781 million adults are illiterate.

Rotary supports activities and training to improve education for all children and literacy for children and adults.

 

Area of Focus Statement of Purpose and Goals:

The Rotary Foundation enables Rotarians to ensure that all people have sustainable access to basic education and literacy by:

  • Involving the community to support programs that strengthen the capacity of communities to provide basic education and literacy to all;

  • Increasing adult literacy in communities;

  • Working to reduce gender disparity in education;

  • Supporting studies for career-minded professionals related to basic education and literacy.

 

Parameters for Eligibility:

The Rotary Foundation considers activities targeting the following to be within the scope of the basic education and literacy area of focus:

  • Access to quality basic primary and secondary education;

  • Educating adults in literacy;

  • Providing training in teaching literacy, curriculum development, and school administration;

  • Strengthening educational experience through improved materials and facilities;

  • Community management of education systems;

  • Vocational training teams supporting the above activities;

  • School desk purchases, when accompanied by a detailed and verifiable plan to improve basic education and literacy;

  • Scholarships for graduate-level study in programs related to basic education and literacy.

 

The Rotary Foundation considers activities targeting the following to be outside the scope of the basic education and literacy area of focus and as such are not eligible for global grant funding:

Click here for more information. 

 

 

Here is a Letter from Carolyn Johnson, Chair Emeritus,  BELRAG 

Rotary members Create Hope in the World by supporting quality  Basic Education and Literacy projects.   In this BELRAG newsletter, meet your new BELRAG officers and board members.  Want to get involved?  Join one of our Professional Expertise Teams (PET) - great leaders are needed for some of these PET groups. 

Celebrate the impact early learning projects that received Community Engagement Grants through BELRAG's partnership with Save the Children.   

Congratulate one of Rotary's newest clubs, a cause-based club in Guatemala and focused on Education and Children's Issues.

Promote Rotary's commitment to Basic Education and Literacy.   Now is the time to plan for International Literacy Day (8 Sept)  and BEL Month - all of September!   Have a great BEL project underway?   Enter it to receive one of the BELRAG Awards.  

Through Education, Rotarians can Create Hope in the World.   BELRAG can help your club develop, enhance or get involved with BEL projects that are making a positive difference.

Enjoy this August BELRAG Newsletter as you  Create Hope in the World through Basic Education and Literacy.

Carolyn Johnson
Chair Emeritus,  BELRAG

 

Please take a moment and read this note from Joan Littleford (Rotary Club of Whitby)  who is also a member of the BELRAG (Basic Education & Literacy Rotary Action Group):

Dear fellow Rotarians and Roataractors in District 7070,

September is Rotary International’s Basic Education and Literacy Month.  What does this mean to your club or to our district?  This month, take time to learn about how people around the world develop the skills and competencies they need to function successfully in society.
 
Rotary basic education and literacy projects have typically focused on the following but are not restricted to:
  • Language learning
    • Ensuring young children develop listening and speaking skills at appropriate stages
    • Learning a second language relative to their community
      • Important for both children and adults
  • Reading/writing development
    • Helping parents of young children understand how to begin a child’s reading journey
    • Helping struggling school age children
    • Assisting adults to become fluent readers or writers
  • Mathematics development
    • Basic functional skills
      • Money management
      • Computation skills
      • Problem solving
  • Science and Technology  
    • Using computer technology
    • Basic scientific farming methods
    • Understanding cycles
    • Construction skills
 
There are many ways that Rotarians can assist our global citizens and use some of the expertise in our own clubs to develop projects. Not all projects have to use large amounts of funds to complete.Sitting consistently with a newcomer to help them learn a new language or develop functional literacy skills will make a huge difference in people’s lives.Create a project yourself or we know that helping to fund an international project that another club has developed will allow that club to expand the reach of their project.
 
Take time to look at the BELRAG newsletters, available at BELRAG.org will allow you to explore a number of possibilities for your club to help others in this important area of Rotary focus.

 

If you wish to find or create a literacy project or make a donation to an existing literacy project, please contact our District 7070 Literacy Chair, Joan Barrett at  jdbarrett67@gmail.com

 

INTERESTED IN LEARNING MORE ABOUT BELRAG : The Basic Education and Literacy Rotary Action Group?  Click Here

Check out all of the BELRAG Newsletters right here and be sure to read the August 2023 edition. 

 

BELRAG Professional Expertise Teams - Get involved!

To better serve clubs in their efforts to promote basic education and literacy, BELRAG is forming professional expertise teams. These groups will collaborate to offer expertise and guidance within defined areas. They will work directly with Rotarians planning projects and grants as well as identifying resources of organizations and best practice within BEL, and examples of Rotary-led projects and programs. They will publish this information on our BELRAG website, share stories in the newsletter and create content for BELRAG webinars. Groups currently established include:

• Adult Education:contact Nancy Leonhardt -  wlrrotary@gmail.com

• Technology in Education: Tony Bloome -  tonybloome@gmail.com

• Teacher Training: Courtney Doldron -  csdoldron@rogers.com

• Early Childhood Education: Joan Littleford -  littlefordjoan@gmail.com

Additional groups are planned to focus on tutoring/mentoring out of school youth, education for girls, libraries, education for children with disabilities, and language programs. If you are interested in leading one of these groups, please contact wlrrotary@gmail.com

September is Rotary Literacy Month!