Natural Literacy Encouragement

Moses on the "M" page of a book
for teaching reading.

When we started working with our partner church seven years ago, our position was oriented toward coordinating a literacy program for evangelists to use as they reached out to their communities.  This is due to the fact that only about 30% of the population here is able to read and write due to the lack of a formal education.  When we first arrived however, there didn’t seem to be much of a vision for a literacy program among the current leaders.  I did hear some stories of how certain evangelists had been successful in starting literacy classes that generated a lot of interest in their villages.  I also met with one Bible school where they showed me the booklets they had used for literacy training in the past. Then they suggested that the only thing that was holding them back currently was waiting for someone to give some money so that they could pay for a trainer to come and also to buy the small booklets.  But I also heard stories of how trainings for teaching literacy had recently been arranged, but those in charge had not followed through, so they never happened.  

All of these things pointed me to the conclusion that the church was actually very able to make and coordinate a literacy program on its own, but the leaders either didn’t find it to be a priority or found it easier to wait for somebody else to do it.  Consequently, we’ve spent most of the past seven years helping to build capacity and people’s awareness of what can be done through the Community Health Evangelism approach (CHE).

But now we fast forward to this year, and it was very encouraging to hear that a few months ago the church started a really good training program for pastors to teach literacy. At the same Bible school that was waiting for a donation, they started to explore other local options for training.  They found that the government was actively looking for partners to help them get more trainers and more locations served.  The government was happy to work with them to send initial trainers, give certificates showing the students are qualified to train others, and supply the teaching materials for any location where the evangelists will go.  This may also pave the way for other Bible schools and churches to have a similar partnership with the government and also be seen as a good resource for communities where they are placed.  I can’t help but thinking about if we had worked out some other elaborate way of coordinating a literacy program, we probably would have missed this more locally sustainable opportunity.

-- El Padre