As the world celebrates International Literacy Day today, I have no doubt in my mind that the first step to empowering any human being is enabling them to read and write.
As a writer and an ardent reader, I find reading empowering in every way.
It does not really matter what one chooses to read but whatever one reads is sure to expand knowledge and to improve the potential to see things differently in life.
I compare illiteracy to a heavy curse I wouldn’t wish on any human being.
Just imagine how it is to live in today’s life and not being able to read and write, not even your name.
Well, according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco), about 774 million adults around the world lack the minimum literacy skills.
One in five adults is still not literate and two-thirds of them are women.
About 75 million children are out-of-school and many more attend irregularly or drop out.
These figures are a cause for concern and should invoke everyone concerned to try and minimise the numbers.
A reading nation is an informed nation.
Also, the primary sense of literacy still represents the lifelong, intellectual process of gaining meaning from a critical interpretation of the written or printed text.
The key to all literacy is reading development, a progression of skills that begins with the ability to understand spoken words and decode written words, and culminates in the deep understanding of text.
Once these skills are acquired, the reader can attain full language literacy, which includes the abilities to approach printed material with critical analysis, inference and synthesis; to write with accuracy and coherence; and to use information and insights from text as the basis for informed decisions and creative thought.
Unesco defines literacy as the “ability to identify, understand, interpret, create, communicate and compute, using printed and written materials associated with varying contexts.
Literacy involves a continuum of learning in enabling individuals to achieve their goals, to develop their knowledge and potential, and to participate fully in their community and wider society.
For over 40 years now, Unesco has been celebrating International Literacy Day by reminding the international community that literacy is a human right and the foundation of all learning.
In countries all over the world, the day raises people’s awareness of and concern for literacy problems within their own communities.
However, literacy is also a cause for celebration on the day because there are nearly four billion literate people in the world. MM
