Literacy a lot more than reading

People at Level 2 literacy, which is roughly Grade 8, comprise 25 per cent of the population in Atlantic Canada. Of those, 47 per cent are actually working, says Peter Gillis, director of the Valley Community Learning Association.

On its website, World Literacy Canada states that approximately 22 per cent of adult Canadians have serious problems dealing with printed material. It also points out that Canadians with the lowest level of literacy skills have an unemployment rate of 26 per cent compared to four per cent for Canadians with the highest literacy skills.

Sixty per cent of Canadians on Social Assistance have not completed high school while almost three-quarters of 626 Canadian companies surveyed feel they have a significant problem with functional literacy in some part of their organization.

Yet even with all this, only 10 per cent of Canadians view illiteracy as part of the country’s economic problems.

Here in the Valley, volunteer-driven organizations like the VCLA work hard through one-on-one tutoring and small group instruction to provide opportunities for adults in terms of literacy and numeracy skills, academic upgrading, family literacy skills, employment skills and lifelong learning skills. The harsh reality is many adults in this region do not have the level of reading, writing, and/or numeracy skills to comfortably perform simple, everyday tasks.

According to the VCLA, persons who are more literate are likely to have better, higher paying jobs; more likely to enjoy better health; more likely to engage in community activities; less likely to be unemployed; and less likely to be in conflict with the law.

The VCLA has been on the go since 1994, but a few years ago it increased its visibility by moving to street-level offices on Kentville’s Cornwallis Street, where it now tends to the literacy needs of about 200 people each year.

Gillis says, while the number of people they see has increased dramatically, funding has remained the same. As a result, the association needs almost double what it receives from the government to run all its programs. Donations, fundraisers and the like are more crucial than ever.

The organization is currently gearing up for its annual Literacy Mile fundraiser, to be held Sunday, June 24. The event is an important source of funding and a means to celebrate the Valley’s vibrant and hard-working literacy community.

The good news is that higher visibility has also attracted more volunteers. There are 60 compared to eight or nine on board before VCLA moved to its prominent location in Kentville.

Literacy, he notes, is a broad term that occasionally requires definition.

The perception is that it’s about people coming to learn how to read, but it’s a lot more than that. It also involves people receiving support to get their GED so they can apply for a job without having their resume shuffled out of the deck.

These days, in fact, the majority of new people seen at the centre are people with jobs. Or the individual could be in the plumbers’ apprentice program and in need of extra help with math. The scenarios that bring people in the region to VCLA are varied, to be sure.

Literacy touches every facet of daily life in our society. People who have a low literacy level and are working are often slow to change, but the demands placed on the workforce have changed. People need ways to upgrade their literacy skills and organizations like the VCLA deserve our support as they work to bridge an undeniable gap.