Stand Up for Girls with LitWorld

Tomorrow, in recognition of International Day of the Girl, those great people at LitWorld are promoting Stand Up For Girls. Many girls around the world still find it difficult to access even a basic education, and two-thirds of illiterate people in the world are women. Please visit the LitWorld website and find out the ways in which you can help them make a difference.

Two thirds of all the world’s illiterate people are women. On September 22, we will stand up for girls and their right to go to school and to learn to read and write. Let us join together to launch a campaign to advocate for a transformative new era in girls’ education.
Every girl has the right to a quality education that will ensure she has a lifelong way to protect herself, advocate for herself, learn what she wants to know and be who she wants to be. Every girl has the right to read and write words that will change her, and to write and tell stories to change the world.

Lighting a Spark for Literacy

My friends over at LitWorld have been busy putting together a summer book and school supplies drive to help two major projects bring literacy and the power of storytelling to disadvantaged children in different parts of the world, and they need as much help as they can get.

KENYA:On July 8, 2011, members of the LitWorld team are headed to Kenya to visit our partners at the Children of Kibera Foundation. LitWorld works very closely with the Children of Kibera Foundation’s Red Rose School, where we run programs such as the Girls Clubs for Literacy Project. The Red Rose School is a beacon of hope for the children of Kibera, and is a positive learning environment providing education for children who are HIV/AIDS orphans.

HARLEM:Starting this summer, LitWorld will set up the Story Power Camp project, a summer reading enrichment program for the youth of the Children’s Village, Polo Grounds Community Center. The Story Power Camp aims to engage young people in reading and writing through fun, interactive activities, while encouraging each participant to boldly share their personal stories. The Children’s Village works in partnership with families to help society’s most vulnerable children so that they become educationally proficient, economically productive and socially responsible members of their communities.

To contribute, view their wishlist via Amazon here (donations are being accepted until 30/06/2011): http://tinyurl.com/litworlddrive

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The Power of Poetry

April is the cruelest month, according to TS Eliot in his famous modernist poem of 1922, The Wasteland.  However, it is also National Poetry Month, and  LitWorld, the global literacy organisation, is celebrating the power and spirit of words by inviting you to help to compose a Global Poem for Change. The American-born poet, novelist and somgwriter Naomi Shihab Nye has kicked it off with the  first line:

I send my words out into the air, listening for yours from everywhere.

What words do you send out into the air?

What words do you listen for? 

Celebrate Poetry Month and create a Global Poem for Change with LitWorld!

Submit a line of your own at litworld.org/poem and watch your poem grow at litworld.org/poemblog.

Grow the Global Poem for Change with LitWorld [SaveYouTube.com]

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World Read Aloud Day 2011

Just had an email from my good friend Ruby Veridiano at LitWorld to bring to my attention World Read Aloud Day on 9 March. Anyone who has attended any of my recent CPD sessions for teachers will be aware of what a fan I am of reading aloud to develop literacy skills, and when allied to such an excellent mission to spread global literacy, everybody wins. I’ll let LitWorld’s press release speak for itself and urge you to do whatever you can to register on the website and get involved.

New York, NY (January 12, 2011) – LitWorld, a Global Literacy Organization, presents World Read Aloud Day, an international celebration that motivates children, teens, and adults worldwide to celebrate the power of words and stories. LitWorld has designated March 9^th, 2011, as the official World Read Aloud Day, encouraging participants from all over the world to participate in a global movement to advocate for every child’s right to literacy, safe education, and access to books and technology.

“Education, and literacy especially, are the human rights issues of our time. We all must work as hard as we can to make sure that children have the right to go to school and to learn to read and write so their stories are part of the fabric of the world as we know it,” says Pam Allyn, Executive Director of LitWorld.

With nearly 1 billion people entering the 21^st century unable to read a book or sign their name, LitWorld believes that literacy is an imperative tool for survival. World Read Aloud Day brings awareness to the fact that millions of people all over the world could be lifted out of poverty if given the ability to read and write. It is a day where people all over the world can take part in the movement for global literacy.

Though LitWorld is based in New York City, participants of World Read Aloud Day do not need to be in the same city to take part in the occasion. World Read Aloud Day is a series of events and happenings across the world that will occur both online and in person, allowing for multiple ways to participate. Whether you are a teacher, student, blogger, or simply an avid reader, one can join in on this day by hosting a World Read Aloud Day event, or by taking the time to read aloud to a classroom or a single person. Participants are encouraged to use social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter to show their support, and linking their posts to LitWorld’s social media accounts and website, and to ask yourselves and others the question: What would you miss most if you could not read or write?

LitWorld’s global platform has created an imperative need for technology and social media to execute the organization’s work in connecting with partners, educators, and students all over the world, and the World Read Aloud Day event further encourages the use of these tools to take part. LitWorld will be recruiting World Read Aloud Day ambassadors and participants from different parts of the world, and has so far gathered a national ambassador list that spans from San Francisco to Chicago to Vermont. Prospective ambassadors are encouraged to visit the LitWorld website to view ideas on how to host a World Read Aloud Day event.

Global Literacy – Spreading the Word

This week I became aware of two very different projects whose purpose is to spread literacy and reading to those who might otherwise be overlooked or neglected. The first of them is the brainchild of the so-called ‘bad boy of books’, Jamie Byng, second son of the 8th Earl of Stratford and managing director of Edinburgh-based publishing house Canongate. Byng rose to fame when, after joining Canongate as an unpaid volunteer, he bought the company from the receivers, before persuading the little-known author Yann Martel to let Canongate publish his novel Life of Pi. The following year it won the Man Booker prize, earning Canongate millions in the process. Further success was to follow when he bought the rights to two books by the little-known Chicago lawyer Barack Obama, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Byng’s latest idea is World Book Night – March 5th 2011 – when 20,000 members of the public chosen from applicants to the WBN website will give away 48 copies of their favourite book chosen from a list of 25 titles. Potential ‘givers’ are asked to describe how, and to whom, their books would be given, and preference will be shown to those who promise to reach the most needy. With traditional publications under threat from Kindle, iPads and ebooks generally, Byng is presumably hoping that the great giveaway will encourage people to go out and buy more books. I’ve already submitted my application.

Around the same time as I was completing my online application for World Book Night, I received an email from Ruby Veridiano of Litworld, a not-for-profit organisation which does some amazing work in  promoting literacy in some of the poorer areas of the world. For the month of  December, Litworld’s focus is on their annual Holiday Book Drive, sending books to Liberia and  Sierra Leone, where most children have never seen, far less owned, a book.

The idea is simple: people donate children’s picture books, sending or bringing them to one of three drop-off points in New York. LitWorld, in partnership with The International Book Bank, will fill a 20ft container with the books (around 3,000 are needed) and ship them to Liberia and Sierra Leone. There, the books will be put straight into the hands of children. Some of these children will never have seen a picture book before; normally, on average, one book is shared among 75 children.

Two very different projects with a common aim. Support them if you can.