Good morning. I'd like to respond first to David's question 7 about increased literacy activity through community publishing.  
 
The Afghanistan Literacy and Community Empowerment Program (LCEP) combined literacy for youth and young adults with community development activities in rural Afghan villages.  Village community development councils (one for women, one for men) helped organize the literacy classes by finding and furnishing a place for classes to meet, finding village residents to be teachers, and providing oversight and (non-financial) support. In many villages, some council members were also literacy learners.  The curriculum guides, developed specifically for this context, involved learners in community activities and brought community members into the classes as resource people.  Learners attended council meetings and published a community newsletter that gave news from the meetings along with other items of interest.  In this case, 'publishing' meant posting a one or two page document on the community bulletin board.  In places like rural Afghanistan, where reading materials are rare, these postings (and other writings by learners) were important sources of literacy learning for the larger community.
 
I've used the past tense in describing LCEP as phase one has been completed, and phase two of the program is awaiting funding.  More descriptions and some materials can be found at lcep.edc.org
 
Brenda
 

________________________________

From: specialtopics-bounces at nifl.gov on behalf of David J. Rosen
Sent: Tue 9/11/2007 7:19 PM
To: specialtopics at nifl.gov
Subject: [SpecialTopics 595] International Literacy: Featured Guests: BrendaBell, Ujwala Samant and Erik Jacobson


Colleagues, 

Wednesday's featured guests are Brenda Bell and Ujwala Samant. Thursday's featured guest is Erik Jacobson. Below are their short bios and suggested readings. 

I would like to add a few more questions, for them and other guests:

8.  How are other countries managing to embed language and literacy development into services designed to help adults get jobs with a future?

9. What do participants most get out of the programs that you have been involved with?  Conversation skills, reading skills, writing skills, employment skills, empowerment, preparation for postsecondary education, computer skills?
If you have been involved in developing integrated curriculum, what are the main goals of curriculum development in international contexts?  

10. How is success measured in programs in other countries?  What sorts of metrics are used?
 
Brenda Bell
 
Brenda Bell, for many years Associate Director of the Center for Literacy Studies, University of Tennessee and Coordinator of the EFF National Center, is currently an education advisor with the Global Learning Group of the Education Development Center (EDC).  In 2004 and 2005, she provided support to EDC's Afghanistan Literacy and Community Empowerment Project which links literacy with governance and economic development activities in 200 rural villages. For the past year, she has been technical advisor to EQuALLS, an education quality and livelihood skills program in over 900 barangays in the western Mindanao area of the Philippines. Additionally, Brenda assists with program assessment, design and development activities in other countries. With many years of experience in nonformal and adult education in the U.S., Brenda (a former Peace Corps volunteer) is enjoying the opportunities and challenges of working outside of the U.S. She lives in Maryville, TN.
 
Suggested Reading: Developing Adult Literacy: Approaches to planning, implementing and delivering literacy initiatives to be published in hard copy by Oxfam on September 30th. The publisher has graciously made the book available online at no charge  in PDF or Word file formats for this discussion.  You will find it at http://publications.oxfam.org.uk/oxfam/display.asp?K=e2007030715391164
or (short form of Web address)  http://tinyurl.com/2gufzt 

Dr. Ujwala Samant
 
Ujwala Samant is director of Learning for Life UK, a small NGo working in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and the UK. Under her leadership, LfL has stabilized financially and added new, larger projects and more than tripled their annual income. She was a senior researcher at the National Center for the Study of Adult Learning and Literacy at Rutgers University, USA. Her research foci include gender, immigrant education, ESOL, learner engagement and voice. She has taught at the International Literacy Institute at the
University of Pennsylvania, and been a consultant in the field of development, education and gender. Her doctoral research examined the links between literacy and social change amongst women in Mumbai slums. She received The UK Asian Woman of Achievement 2007 award for Social and Humanitarian work

Dr. Erik Jacobson
 
Erik Jacobson is an Assistant Professor at Montclair State University in New Jersey, where he works in the Early Childhood, Elementary and Literacy Education Department. One of his research interests is the goals that teachers and students set for themselves in Japanese adult basic education classes (literacy and Japanese as a Second Language). He has been looking at this topic for almost 10 years, and he recently returned from visiting programs in Osaka and Nara. Erik is also the co-area leader of the Adult Literacy Education Wiki section on World Literacy and Nonformal Education, and he maintains a page on world literacy news.
 
Suggested Web sites:
 
Sample Story
 
http://home.kyodo.co.jp/modules/fstStory/index.php?storyid=305624
 
Context for Japanese ABE
 
"Multicultural"
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20070327zg.html
 
Buraku Discrimination
http://blhrri.org/blhrri_e/blhrri/buraku.htm
 
Organization
 
Japan Society for the Study of Adult and Community Education
http://wwwsoc.nii.ac.jp/jssace/index-e.html
 
 
David J. Rosen
Special Topics Discussion Moderator
djrosen at comcast.net



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