Why Literacy is Important

Another post from someone providing a great service to their community. This blogger is writing for literacy.

She is trying to write as many words as she can in a 48 hour period (I think she will be writing a story and not just typing words). She very coherently identifies the problems illiterate adults have just surviving in the world. Her stats in this article are old. I found that in my community one in five adults cannot read at Level 1 (National Institute for Adult Literacy 2003 study). This means that they can read, but not well enough to fill out a job application, read instructions on a can, or read a simple story to a child. In this post, she makes a personal plea to make an effort to help those in need. I will provide a different incentive. As I mentioned in the previous post, adults who do not have the basic skills to hold a down a job results in an economic drain on the economy. Business move into a community looking for qualified workers, if they cannot find them, or if their accident rate is high because their employees cannot read the instructions, the business goes out of business or moves to a different community. Adult Illiteracy is a local issue, the more literate, able, and affluent your population, the more it will continue to grow that way. Those communities who fail to help these people relegate themselves to the same poverty and the same missed opportunity.

Adult Literacy programs are available in most communities. Help them sustain them by volunteering your time, money, or support (Proliteracy Literacy Program.