literacy

24 to 31 October 2019 is UNESCO’s Global Media and Information Literacy (MIL) Week. The theme - Media and Information Literate Citizens: Informed, Engaged, Empowered.

UNESCO says that education for all must include media information and literacy for everyone. Informal education is important – but classes are important too.

The Matipo Community Development Charitable Trust garden and education centre has won the Supreme Award at the Trustpower National Community Awards.

The gardens were established in 2013 in a formerly derelict part of Whanganui by the late Black Power Leader Craig Rippon. Since then Housing New Zealand has provided a renovated house which acts as an education hub and over 50 people have taken part in education. They started with literacy classes, and moved on to Horticulture as well as construction apprenticeships.

In mid-2016 Te Puea Memorial Marae in Māngere was in the news when it opened its doors to the growing number of homeless people in Auckland. Three years later and the marae’s Manaaki Tāngata Programme is now working in partnership with the Ministry of Social Development: The marae has become a Transitional Housing Provider with some of its many voluntary kaimahi now paid – at least for some of the many hours that they work.

A newly released report State of the Nation 2019: Social Mobility in Great Britain, notes that “inequality is still deeply entrenched in Britain: there is a persistent gap in early literacy; the attainment gap at the end of secondary school has hardly shifted since 2014 and the better off are nearly 80 per cent more likely to end up in a professional job than those from a working-class background.”

The authors have identified the barriers that disadvantaged people face and make recommendations which are designed to help disadvantaged people fulfil their potential.