Project
Hope-Uganda Family learning and family literacy resource centre Profile
Empowering families to read and write for
leisure
Family Learning
and family literacy resource centre is affiliated to Project Hope Uganda and
registered with directorate of community based services Wakiso district. The
family resource centre was established in Nangabo Sub County in 2008 to offer
family literacy and library services. The focus is to build on existing family
literacy practices, skills and resources for effective function and
transformation of communities. Facilitation of family learning helps to nurture
interest in reading and writing within the family as a whole. Home environment
provides real life situations for transforming literacy skills. Families make a
sustained change to their life if they feel the new idea came from them. They
can see how the change builds on something they do already to something they
want to do.
This project
supports inter-generational literacy development by taking learning into remote
homes where parents and children feel they have nothing to do in a library. It
matches the interests, abilities and needs of disadvantaged families with their
literacy development activities. Therefore, building on home culture, existing
family literacy practices and experiences is central to the family learning and
literacy activities. Ideas promoted include changing family attitudes and
lifestyles. For example making reading and writing for family pleasure, growing
and eating different foods for a healthier diet, improving home hygiene to
prevent disease, cultivating different
ways of to improve crops and early
childhood development skills . As such, it is different from just giving
learners more knowledge. The out comes are stunning; family learning generates
excitement, parental engagement in child learning, improvement in communication
skills and quality time spent together as a family. Parents feel confident to
play their significant role as first educators of their children. A culture of
reading and achievement that lasts a life time is developed.
The family literacy library services delivery is every
Saturday and Wednesday every week.
Sessions are conducted for children from 10.00am to 4.00pm. Mothers meet
from 4.00pm to 6.00pm every Wednesday and Saturday. Some sessions are organised
parents and children activities. Mothers learn how to support their children
learn better, produce family literacy resources and improve their skills to
earn a better income and provide their families nutrition.
Community and Schools:
Over 80% of children in surrounding communities are raised in poverty
and many of them under achieve in school because they are less prepared. The
adults do poorly in the job market because they have extremely limited reading
skills. Family learning is offering parents and children new skill to overcome
obstacles to well being. Most schools accessed by low income households who use
the resource centre are poorly equipped with both learning and teaching
resources. Some children from poor households are kept out of school because of
failure to meet school requirements. This means that while children formal
education is disrupted, schools go without required school fees to access
teaching resources. Kasangati Muslim Primary School partnered with the resource
centre because of the precarious situation the education in the area is in. The
school had 390 children in 2010/2011, 36 sat primary seven leaving exams, none
of them scored first grade but 15 passed in the second grade. Enrolment in the
following year dropped below 300. Through the centre, children in Kasangati
Muslim School and St Leonards School from UK exchange letters to improve their
communication skills and build relationship.
Currently, there are 6 nursery schools, 5 primary schools and 4
secondary schools with in 3km radius of the centre that benefit from family
literacy programmes. Children from surrounding households who walk more than
3km to schools access library services on Saturdays. Family literacy targets
pre-school age children and their mothers because early years are widely
acknowledge for being the most formative years of the child. Learning starts
before school. Family learning out reach activities support children reading
activities in 6 villages in a radius of 6km. Read aloud sessions are organised
by two family literacy facilitators in each of the villages. Each village has a
public place to read books from. These are called community learning centres.
Three of these community learning centres are attached to schools, two to homes
and one to a church. They all meet on Saturday, when children are out of
school. Time is arranged according to local circumstances to suit community
participation.
History:
When the family literacy project was initiated
in 2008 as many as 368 needy children were excited to join because they had
thought family learning was about opening schools. The founder, Augustine
Napagi converted an old house (about 20ft by 20ft) into a family literacy
library facility. The centre has grown ever since then to include activities of
early childhood development, foundation for farming and functional adult
literacy.
Instructors of NIACE (UK) have been training both the
local staff and community volunteers through annual training workshops since
2008. In 2008 they trained 19 family learning facilitators to work with parents
in six community learning centres. These centres are based at Kasangati Muslim
primary school, Christ church Bulamu, Nalusugga village, Katadde primary
school, Kitagobwa primary school and Wattuba village. In community learning
centres children gather to read aloud with the trained family learning
facilitators. In 2012 the building of a bigger reading room (about 20ft by
40ft) was partly funded with a grant of £1,000 from Book Aid International
refurbishment fund. In the same year, 20 mothers trained and succeeded in
actively engaging in reading with their children for the first time. This followed
the annual family literacy training workshop in 2011 facilitated by Project
Hope Uganda and NIACE. It was the first time mothers recognised their
significance as primary teachers of their children.
Activities and Programmes:
Family Learning;
Family learning
is a process in which parents with their children develop their talents and new
skills together. The parents have learnt supporting and encouraging children to
learning by; valuing and listening to them, working alongside them and most
importantly enjoying time together. Parents and children enjoy sharing a book
together, particularly one that they make themselves. They teach each other to
complete puzzles, read passages, answer questions and learn new skills and move
into sustainable profit making employment. They share stories, rhymes and
impact on their own health and social well being.
Parents are
supported to help children do their home work through access to information,
advice and guidance. Whole family good practice is impacted because it is replicated
with other siblings, and when siblings become adults they will make better
parents. Participating parents have become better positive role models.
Learning is fun and rewarding and creates more positive attitude to learn. They
have gained confidence and knowledge in positive parenting.
The
participants were trained to provide practice for child brain development t to
lay a strong foundation for school readiness. Parents talk with their children
often and encourage them to talk back. They share stories and describe how to
do things. They have the children say to them the same things. Parents speak
slowly at times, so the child notices syllables. Children will need these later
when they are learning to read words. They play learning games where they take
turns and are encouraged to describe something completely without leaving
anything out. Children receive praise whenever they try. Parents show children
how to turn pages, how to notice things in the book, tell a story in a book
using pictures and talk about the pictures.
Children are encouraged to notice everything in a picture and put it
into words. Children are supported to recognize all these things. Reading and
writing one’s name are often the first activities to do. In general, parents learn that touching, talking,
reading, smiling, writing and playing helps children’s brain develop and
nourish the child’s potential for a life time. The library then provides
resource required like shapes, colours, objects, children picture books,
sounds, songs, puzzles, mask, puppets, toys, games and space to play, learn and
have fun together. They write, draw, paint, doodle, scribble, shade and trace.
It gives ideas; skills and
confidence to carry on the learning at home, making the family and the home
very important parts of children learning and development so that they can
reach their full potential.
Family literacy project develops local language literacy resource for
use with low literate families which are familiar to children and parents to
interact with. It also provides literacy materials adapted for local use
through library services. It is a forum for sharing experience and knowledge
among parents through peer support training workshops.
Family Literacy Days:
Family learning organises Family Literacy Days, a
parallel to Reading Tents that traditional community libraries organise.
Families, groups and individuals present what they like and read aloud and act
out stories every 6 months. The community local authorities are invited,
functional adult literacy instructors inter generational literacy facilitators
and associates give speeches and interact with the public. The previous family
literacy day was held in December 2011, where Fred Lukabwe an adult literacy
trainer of functional adult literacy instructors from ministry of gender and
social development gave a speech explaining traditional practices in child
upbringing. Two written speeches from associates; one from Hannah of Global
Goodness and another from Karen and Clare formerly working with NIACE were read
out. The speeches spelt out the universality of family literacy in the world.
Family learning is the missing link to break inter-generational illiteracy in
Africa.
School Reading Programme:
Although families are the main focus we have partnered
with Kasangati Muslim Primary School. Three teachers from the school are
trained family learning facilitators. They created literacy activities based on
what children are learning in class, their ability, interests and needs. The
activities are interactive and promote reading, social, speech, listening and
communication skills. Literacy development activities are specially created for
low achieving children. These are based on storybooks for children to read for
pleasure and leads to literacy follow up activities. The activities can be
children acting out a character in the book or taking a hot seat to answer
questions about the character of their choice.
Other activities:
The centre exchanges books through a book box loan service to all six
village reading centres. The children read and act out the stories. The mothers
translate stories into children’s familiar language. The facilitators hold
their own bi monthly family literacy materials development workshops for
reading games, family learning sessions for parents, children, and parents
together with children. Staff training and local language literacy development
is done annually with support of external facilitators from UK. Uganda
Community libraries Association and LETTERS training workshops organised by
Makerere University department of Adult Education
Workshops heled facilitators to support mothers
rethink their actions and discover what makes children read.
Currently Global goodness sponsors women family
literacy courses. The women go through the course of helping children learn.
They have translated children books to read with their children at home. They
also write stories of their own to share with their families. Twenty women were
inspired by the family literacy course in 2011. They wished to support their
children further by providing nutrition, school fees and medical care. This
made them to start a savings scheme where they intend to use savings to start
poultry farming. Most of them are single mothers, other with irresponsible
husbands, some are HIV positive and some have many children to look after. If
supported with resource, these women have the will and self determination to
over come injustice imposed on them by poverty and illiteracy.
Support:
Project Hope Uganda donates £ 500 annually to run the
activities and also funds all trainings. The family literacy centre is a member
of Uganda Community Libraries Association and it benefits from its training
programmes and grant offers. In 2011/2012 the Global Goodness donated £700 to
support family literacy women’s activities, 18 families were trained and became
regular library users. In 2012, Book Aid International donated 900 books and a
library refurbishment grant of £1,000 for completing the construction of a
reading room. The reading room (20ft by 40ft) is now complete and in use for
early childhood development activities in addition to the old building used as
an adult learning centre and library. The family literacy coordinator greatly benefited
from the training workshops organised by Makerere University in ethnographic
literacy and new reader writers, special thanks to George, Sonya, Elda and
Alan.
Family literacy centre further received a donation of 85 children
picture books from OSU book fund and 83 locally published children books from
UgCLA. It received another 19 children’s books from Darien Book Aid in 2011 and
65 books for low literate readers from the New Readers Publishers of University
of KwaZulu-Natal South Africa in 2012. A lot of support was received from UK
family learning associates, which included books, laptop, funds, training,
toys, facilitation materials and stationery. Leicester choir, the late Ron and
his wife Margaret, Steve and Peter all contributed to the building of the first
reading room. We have also received various gifts for children from members of
Oxfordshire saint Magdalene church and St. Leonards School from UK. Judith
Baker trained family literacy facilitator in story writing and donated books
and a camera for storybook creation in 2011. All individuals we have not
mentioned here because they sent resources without signing on their names are
greatly appreciated, many of whom are from UK.
Apart from Project Hope Uganda catering for annual
administrative costs for family learning activities, it also provides transport
for the trainers, Christine, Karen and Clare, the family literacy trainers from
National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (NIACE) to and fro Uganda to train facilitators
annually. Project Hope provides free transport for local staff to train further
in international family literacy forums.
Resources and Staff:
Facilities;
An office building, a reading room, 5 office
chairs, 15 plastic chairs, a cushion for sitting on, a mat, 2 tables, office
desk, fixed shelves and puppets.
.
Materials;
The resource centre has mainly family literacy
materials for children, parents and facilitators. Some of it is homemade. It
has school children books donated by BAI, UgCLA, Darien Book Aid, OSU children
fund and KwaZulu-Natal University.
Staff;
The librarian is called Olivia Nankya. She organises the library
records, reads aloud in the family learning sessions, loans out books and
receives feedback on the books read and helps children and adults read
together. Immaculate Mutabaire is the family learning social worker. She trains
mothers to support their children learn better and runs family literacy women
courses. Augustine Napagi is the co-ordinator and has a number of
responsibilities: home visits to observe how parents and children begin to
learn to read together, supports facilitators, partners with schools, markets
family learning provision, and ensures quality and standard of family literacy
offer.
There are two facilitators in each community learning centres. They read
aloud, support parents, and help children learn, manage community learning
centres and conduct family learning sessions. The facilitators also train
parents to volunteer to help other parents in family learning activities.
Management;
The resource center is managed by a committee of five
people. They are trained family literacy facilitators. They include Martha
Nakke a primary school teacher from Kasangati Muslim Primary School, Christine
Nansubuga a mother with low literacy, Immaculate Mutabaire an accountant by
training, Nankya Olivia a school girl of form 5 and Augustine Napagi a graduate
in social sciences and a trained adult literacy facilitator. Project Hope
Uganda oversees the work of family learning and literacy resource centre.
Victoria Braiser of BA is the patron.
Use and Users:
Semi-literate
mothers take the opportunity to read with their children using
bilingual literacy materials they develop together with their children at the
resource centre and in their homes.
Other library users include adult literacy learners, school children and
pre-school age children and grandmothers. Demonstrations for foundations for
farming for family employment skills development are targeting the youth
especially adolescent mothers without adequate literacy and employment skills.
Record Keeping:
The resource centre keeps track of books received in a
designated note book. Another note book
for books borrowed for reading aloud with children in various community
learning centres is maintained. Attendance at the family learning sessions is
noted down in a separate notebook, and so are library books that users check
out. All visitors sign the visitors’ book.
The women family literacy group attends a family literacy course and
weekly reports are made and a copy is kept in a box file.
Rules and Regulations:
1. Clean hands before reading a book.
2. Never write, scribble, draw, doodle, shade or
paint in the book.
3. Never glue or cut the papers of a book.
4. Save your place with a bookmark, not by
folding a page.
5. Don’t put pens, pencils and rulers in between
pages of the book.
6. Don’t grab a book from another reader.
7. Open pages carefully using the top corner of
the page.
8. Carry your book in a book bag to keep it safe.
9. Put your book in a safe place at home, away
from babies and pets.
10. Don’t fold your book or sit on it.
11. Leave the book on the table after reading.
12. Don’t put food or wet utensils on books
Vision for the Future:
The resources centre plans to have computer literacy
sessions when it accesses computers and electricity or solar power; to publish
its own written stories for children and adults; to create a safe playing area
for children; to run sustainable and profit making farm skills development
programmes; to scale up early childhood development activities;to consolidate
achievement made and to initiate family planning and maternal literacy as well
for the health of mothers and children.
Contact Information:
Physical Address;
Wakiso district, Kyadondo County, Nangabo sub county, Bulamu parish and
Kyetume LC1 B.
How to get there (from Kampala):
Take taxi from Old Taxi Park to Gayaza. Get off at Gayaza, Take a boda
boda following Gayaza–Manyangwa road. Get off before Manyangwa trading centre,
after Gayaza Seventh Day Adventist Church, at Rockie gardens (1 km). Turn left
and go down the slope (0.75 km).
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