Actionable Responses to Important Questions: Family Literacy in the time of COVID-19 Impacts Now and Moving Forward
Actionable Responses to Important Questions: Family Literacy in the time of COVID-19 Impacts Now and Moving Forward
By Denny Taylor
Questions are always tricky. Most could be answered with a sentence, but the answers would be informational and not actionable. The UN High Level Political Forum has designated the 2020s as the decade of action, and I support this initiative and so does the Women's Federation for World Peace, International. So my responses to your important questions are written to lead to action.
When you read the questions and my responses, you will quickly find that all the questions are interconnected. You will find places where I guide you to the response to another question that also applies to the question and response that you are reading. As you read you will find that the information becomes increasingly actionable. You will build a knowledge base that has forty years of ethnographic research to support it. And most importantly, the knowledge base you are building has an evidence-based foundation in a meta-analysis of family literacy projects and initiatives in UN member states.
My hope is that this solid foundation in family literacy -- both in theory and practice -- facilitates communications at all levels of leadership. I have written my responses with the idea that you will be able to engage in research-based conversations to foster partnerships to establish family literacy projects and initiatives that are meaningful, purposeful and actionable in local communities in many different countries around the world. More on “Family Literacy in the Time of COVID-19 and Call to Action” on the Women's Federation for World Peace, International website.
One: What is family literacy?
The concept of family literacy is grounded in the recognition that the family is the originating and only organizing principle that all people share, and that all other divisions and affiliations are secondary.
Family literacy is especially important because it is a dynamic organizing principle that frames initiatives for families in most UN member states. The idea of family literacy has become ubiquitous, and there are many family literacy projects that focus on peacebuilding and peace sustaining initiatives that incorporate the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Incredible as it might seem, there is substantial evidence to support the proposition that family literacy can foster ties between nations and provide an easy to implement global strategy to ensure life for future generations on Earth.
Family literacy initiatives and projects have a 40-year evidence based record of capacity building. There are family literacy initiatives undertaken by governments, NGOs, UN Member States, academia, the private sector, and the UN system, including UNESCO and UNICEF. In the past 40 years it is estimated that the concept of family literacy projects and initiatives have touched the lives of more than one billion people. The number might be much higher but it isn’t less.
There is a wealth of materials published in many countries, in multiple languages, some multilingual and plurilingual, from books to periodicals, guides, manuals, handbooks, conference materials, bibliographies, dictionaries, and encyclopedia descriptions. Most of these family literacy materials focus on topics that are of specific concern to local communities, such as AIDS education. Other materials are geographically specific, for example, there are materials specifically developed for use in Africa, Asia and the Pacific, and Latin America, as well as in North America, the U.K., the E.U., Russia, and China.
In addition to the US, Russia and China, family literacy projects and initiatives are integral to the political macrostructures of economically advanced countries on five continents, as well as in many countries in response to the rise in extreme inequality caused by the increasing imbalance in economic, financial and trade frameworks of the dominant UN Member States.
Two: What is the Family Literacy Declaration of Principles? Is there a website where we can find the Declaration?
I am so glad a webinar participant in Venezuela asked about the Family Literacy Declaration of Principles. It is such an important document constructed and signed by educators in universities and schools on four continents and it is underused. The Declaration is a counter narrative of hope and possibility that can be used to frame family literacy projects and initiatives around the world to reduce suffering and ensure that children and their families thrive. The principles were originally published in a book, but in this document the principles are presented and links are made to peacebuilding, the SDGs and climate change. Here is the link: UN HLPF 2019 & the Family Literacy Declaration of Principles — Dr. Denny Taylor
Three: How can family literacy help families overcome many challenges?
This question is at the heart of my advocacy for family literacy projects and initiatives in all UN member states. My responses to all ten questions provide information that will enable you to address this pivotal question when you are advocating for this underutilized and relatively untapped approach to enhancing the lives of families, building peaceful societies, and achieving the sustainable development goals.
Most family literacy initiatives in UN Member States are conceptually plural (addressing many problems simultaneously). Many focus on ending poverty and hunger, and on promoting good health and wellbeing. The majority of family literacy initiatives have as their mission inclusive quality education, gender equality, climate action, peace and justice, and revitalizing partnerships for the goals.
One could argue effectively that the reason family literacy initiatives have been so successful in UN member states is because they provide women at home with their families an opportunity to take up a leadership role in times of crises. There is much more research that needs to be done to document this aspect of family literacy projects in UN member states, and this thread is the focus of my research this summer.
Four: Have you done any family literacy studies with Black children and their families?
I spent six years engaged in ethnographic research with Black families living in Newark, New Jersey, and four more years writing two books with African American scholars. I wrote Growing Up Literate: Learning From Inner City Family with the renowned Black scholar, Catherine Dorsey-Gaines, and the book received the Mina Shaughnessy Prize from the Modern Languages Association. It was a groundbreaking book because it turned the racist stereotypes of Black children upside down. We wrote at the time:
Literacy cannot be treated as a neutral technology;
To be literate is a uniquely human experience, one that enables us to deal with ourselves and to better understand one another. It is never a mechanical process that is solely dependent upon skills that are taught.
We also stated that parents, educators and policy makers should be encouraged to:
Consider the ways in which children can grow in the imagination of their own social experience;
Recognize the complex communicative abilities that are a part of children’s everyday lives, so that every child is given the opportunity to experience a private sense of challenge and a public sense of achievement.
Writing specifically of the findings of the longitudinal ethnographic study in Newark, we wrote:
Race, gender, economic status and setting cannot be used as correlates of literacy. The myths and stereotypes that create images of specific groups (families who are poor, inner-city families, teenage mothers and their children) have no relevance when we stop counting and start observing and working with people;
Literacy is not always liberating. The economic circumstances in which the families live creates a social and political climate in which print in all its forms is used to intrude upon their everyday lives.
Five: How do we get the UN to recognize the importance of family literacy in peacebuilding and also in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals? Do you think this will happen?
Such a great question. It’s puzzling. There are so many missed opportunities. Old narratives impact perception at the highest level as well the perception of those working to support global, national and local decision makers. At every level, well established and entrenched frameworks for addressing problems impact the possibilities of new thinking.
Officially, the peacebuilding benefits of family literacy initiatives are not recognized. And yet, a meta-analysis of family literacy initiatives and projects in UN Member States provides solid research evidence that the beneficiaries are women and children living in extreme poverty who are also living in fear of sexual violence and insecurity, displaced families, asylum seekers, refugees, survivors of armed conflict, and families in responding to the climate emergency and other manmade disasters.
The universal applicability of family literacy to all of these lived experiences is underscored by the meta-analysis of family literacy initiatives in UN member states, and is a tribute to the UN Officials, NGOs, academia, the private sector, and to local groups in every region around the world who are focused on improving the life-circumstances of families and are visionary in their pursuit of peacebuilding.
A transformative change in governing would require more attention to local knowledge, to the deep understandings of local families, and to the peace sustaining opportunities that family literacy creates to address peacebuilding challenges at local, regional and global scales.
For example, family literacy is used to frame peace-enhancing initiatives in Afghanistan, Nepal, and Sub Saharan Africa, offering village based family literacy programs, which seek to develop literacy in the context of community needs such as health, employment and family planning.
Family literacy has also become a conduit for the peaceful relocation of refugees and economic migrants in Canada, the US, and many countries in Europe, especially Germany and Sweden. Family literacy programs are also available in many economically advantaged countries, especially for immigrant mothers and children learning new languages and life skills so they can survive and thrive in the new places that have become their home.
In some countries family literacy initiatives are designed to reduce gender inequality and family violence, while in other countries family literacy programs focus on the amelioration of psychological and emotional traumas resulting from armed conflict and the support of family members physically disabled by war. For example, family literacy peace enhancing programs have been established to:
Respond to the needs and concerns about health, employment and family planning (Afghanistan; Albania; Sub Saharan Africa);
Respond to the psychosocial needs of women (Afghanistan; Egypt)
Respond to war trauma and PTSD (Afghanistan; Iraq)
Respond to issues of child labor, family violence, and other life adversities (Afghanistan;)
Establish literacy programs for socially excluded families (Bosnia and Herzegovina);
Establish literacy and peace education classes for families (Iraq);
Establish literacy programs, especially for women and girls who want to attend schools and literacy classes in order to lead a peaceful and better life (Iraq; Bangladesh);
Establish programs empowering rural women to develop literacy skills through the writing and documenting of their own poetry as a cultural resource that is valued both locally and nationally (Yemen);
Establish programs in low-literacy regions, e.g. with families in the deeply-rural, under- resourced mountain valleys of KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa);
Create home-based programs to engage with families in literacy activities (South Africa);
Create literacy centers of care for vulnerable children and mothers (South Africa)
Combat HIV and AIDS through informational literacy activities (South Africa);
Establish family and community literacy programs for children isolated and needlessly separated from their families (Armenia);
Encourage family literacy for boys and girls living in poverty by developing basic literacy and using “communication technology” (Azerbaijan).
The most important point here is that family literacy initiatives frame life-sustaining initiatives established in the aftermath of armed conflict to assist mothers and children who have experienced mass violence, and to support family members in the military returning home with PTSD and life-impacting physical injuries.
For example, there is compelling evidence that family literacy initiatives in Iraq provide post conflict projects to support families and communities negatively impacted by war. There are family literacy initiatives in Iraq that address both the mental health distress (PTSD) of internally displaced Iraqi youth (13-17 year olds), and the mental health distress of both parents and their young children. Similar family literacy initiatives that address the high incidence of major depression, anxiety and suicidality in youth and young children can also be found in Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Rwanda, Israel, and the West Bank and Gaza.
Thus, we can state with great confidence that family literacy projects and initiatives are in keeping with the UN peacebuilding architecture, amplifying social resilience, fostering engagement and collaboration between multiple stakeholders from the public and private sectors.
Based on the evidence a strong argument can be made for reconsidering the significant role that family literacy programs can have as conduits for local peacebuilding initiatives that enhance the lives of vulnerable people in every UN Member State, including economically advantaged countries. By reframing family literacy programs in UN Member States, these well-established collaborative initiatives offer real possibilities for peace building, and the support of family literacy projects could have a vital role in achieving consensus on political solutions for sustainable peace.
In a time of protracted conflicts, sectarian violence, population displacement and refugee challenges, being able to read and write can become the determining factor of whether entire families live or die. It is for this reason that family literacy is important to the future of humanity.
Six: How can I start a family literacy project in my community?
Another great question. One of the questions we received was: “Is there a family literacy project in Zambia?” A computer search proved that Zambia has a groundbreaking family literacy initiative and so much information that could be helpful in establishing local and national family literacy initiatives. Here is the website: https://specialreports.creativeassociatesinternational.com/in-zambia-creating-a-culture-of-reading-takes-a-village/
And, here is a quote from the Zambia website: “When we talk about communities, we are also talking about parents. It’s very important that we collaborate with them because the children stay with them. They come from their homes. So, if you leave a gap, it means that the whole circle is not complete. The school and the community should be together and move together.”
In establishing a family literacy project, referring to successful local knowledge and experiences is important, and it is worth spending a little time conducting a computer search. You might start by researching family literacy projects in the region where you live -- enter the name of the place and “family literacy.” I have searched for family literacy projects in almost all UN member states. It’s incredible how many family literacy reports there are in almost every country! You’ll find lots of good ideas and many examples you can refer to if you apply for funding.
You might also use this document as a resource to guide you as you build your case. It’s the reason I responded in depth to the question on peacebuilding and the Sustainable Development Goals! You can write in your proposal that family literacy projects have a 40 year history that is supported by evidence based findings of many many research studies. You can also include major reports that focus on family literacy initiatives. Here are three key reports you can cite:
https://www.nuffieldfoundation.org/sites/default/files/files/Nuffield-Family-Literacy-Report.pdf
https://ec.europa.eu/assets/eac/education/policy/school/doc/family-literacy_en.pdf
And, of course, you have my permission to use any information on my website.
Seven: How can we motivate people who are not literate to come forward and learn to read and write, bearing in mind they are embarrassed.
Such an important question. My grandfather could not read, however he told great stories. When he was old and living on his own after my Nan’s death, my mother would address envelopes to herself and put stamps on them and once a week my grandfather, who did not want to leave his home, would draw an X on a piece of paper and mail it to my mother. If my grandfather was here now I would write down his stories and use them to teach him to read. The lesson for us all is to find a positive experience and use it as the basis for learning to read. Always start with meaning. It must be purposeful. It cannot be skill driven and a chore.
Another example, I worked with homeless people for many years and one of the men I helped was a chronic alcoholic who was living on the streets and it took a little while but I was able to help him get a little apartment. In Toxic Literacies I called him Sam.
When I met Sam he was unwashed, grimy and a big man. It was winter and he had on five pairs of trousers and many jackets to keep warm, but when he moved into his apartment and he was wearing a single pair of jeans and a t-shirt it became clear that he was a very little man who enjoyed cleaning his apartment all day long.
In the winter when Sam was homeless, he spent most of his days in the library looking at the pictures in the newspapers. He figured out what was going on by “reading” the pictures. I was studying the ways social services and other agencies interacted with people who were homeless or experiencing addiction to alcohol or opioids, and I asked Sam if he would like to help me with my research.
At this time I was going to hospitals, the courts, welfare with people to help them navigate the system, and I had helped Sam get a little apartment. I gave him money to buy newspapers everyday. He wanted to know which articles I wanted, and I said, “You figure it out.” Sam often came with me when I visited with people on the streets or went as a “guest” to meetings of AA, NA, and CA. “See if you can find articles that are relevant to both of us.”
Sam set to work. He used some of the money I gave him for newspapers to buy a pad of yellow lined paper, some scissors, and tape. Everyday he “read” two newspapers, one national and one local, and he carefully cut out articles with pictures and stuck them on the yellow lined paper. I saw Sam almost everyday, but once a week we sat at his kitchen table and he explained why he had chosen the articles he had cut out of the papers. I showed him how to copy the name of the newspaper, date, and page at the top of the yellow note paper and he was meticulous at doing that.
As we talked Sam would say this is about - for example, a court case about someone he knew, or an account of the city council on an issue that impacted poor people’s lives. Together we would come up with categories for the articles he had chosen, and I started writing a list of Sam’s categories. After a few weeks Sam had approximately twenty categories, and he became adept both at stating the category and an explanation of the social justice issue - providing interpretations based on local knowledge and lived experience.
But here is the most important part of this story. After a few months it became clear that Sam could actually read and write. At first his writing was shaky, spidery and difficult to read, but gradually over weeks he increased his pressure on the pencil, and the words he wrote became less spidery and more confident. After a few months it became clear that Sam was not only a good reader, he was also a good writer.
There was sufficient evidence for me to state that Sam had lost his ability to read and write because of the traumas he had experienced. Over the years that I worked with Sam, there were several times when high-stress situations impacted his mental health, and he became distressed because he could not read again. He explained that when he looked at the newspapers he couldn’t “see the words” - just marks on the page. I reassured him that when he felt better he would see the words again - and that is what happened. It was always a joyful moment when he became a reader again.
I have observed this phenomenon in other studies. For example, Patrick, who I wrote about in Learning Denied, struggled to read and write when he was a little child, because of the stress of skill and drill programs and activities at school. Patrick was tested by the school more than any child I know.
Once, I read the list of tests he had been required to take in a key-note at a conference. It took fifteen minutes to read the list and many psychologists got up and left the room.
Patrick was simply terrified. He would come to see me, and if we looked at the workbook pages he was supposed to do for homework when he first arrived, he was unable to function. Literally. And so we played with my dogs, ate chocolate cake, and had great conversations about his love of the forest and hiking with his family, before reading a few pages of a book together or writing a story about the environment. The last thing we did was look at the workbook pages he was supposed to do for homework and I would help him do them - contextualizing the skills and giving him examples of their use.
I have written three stories in response to this important question, because there are no simple answers. Caution is needed in considering commercial programs or “quick-fix” solutions to address the reading and writing of both children and adults who are struggling. Every reader is an original and you will need all your problem-solving abilities to support their reading and writing. It is a privilege and pleasure to work with both children and adults who are learning to read and write. Embarrassment comes when there is some external “standard” that has to be met. Start with the person’s life. What does she or he know? What can they teach you? How can you ensure that the work you do together is meaningful in the person’s life?
Eight: How do we approach the education of children, especially young children about the dangers of contracting the disease?
Children’s future lives depend on how we – their parents and teachers – support them during the pandemic. Parents are asking “What can I do to support my family right now?” “How should I talk to my children about the virus?” And, “I’m struggling with their school work. It makes no sense to me so how can I teach them?”
COVID-19 is a catastrophe like no other. A hurricane, flood or fire happens quickly – often gone after a few days, or a week – and then we focus on recovery – months and often years of building back. But COVID-19 has no end and what happens next is uncertain.
The impact of the pandemic was magnified by most governments around the world being caught off-guard with little understanding of the short or long-term consequences of the virus. The response of presidents and prime ministers has been fragmented, and recommendations have been contradictory and sometimes dangerous.
Almost overnight families became more vulnerable. Life changed, jobs were lost, loved ones became sick with many dying. Schools closed, and parents were made responsible for the education of their children. Irrationally, “school work” (much of it commercial and test-driven) was expected to be done by kids at home.
Put bluntly, policy makers, educators and society must stop raising the anxiety level of parents and children by constantly agonizing about students “falling behind”. It is irrational, irresponsible and deleterious to the health and well being of children, as well as their academic development.
The Nobel Laureate Eric Kandel writes that following extremely stressful events, reminders of the initial trauma often trigger recurrent episodes of fear. He writes, “the memory of the traumatic experience remains powerful for decades and is readily reactivated by a variety of stressful circumstances”.
There is a significant body of medical research which supports the proposition that children who have adverse life experiences can be become more resilient if: (1) their families are supported; (2) their schools and communities are quickly restored; and (3) they have the opportunity to regain a sense of hope through joyful learning experiences.
Exemplary of the medical research that supports this position is the work of the psychiatrist Bessel Van der Kolk (2005), who emphasizes the importance of “establishing safety and competence for children who have experienced complex traumas. He writes:
Complexly traumatized children need to be helped to engage their attention in pursuits that do not remind them of trauma-related triggers and that give them a sense of pleasure and mastery. Safety, predictability, and “fun” are essential for the establishment of the capacity to observe what is going on …
Only after children develop the capacity to focus on pleasurable activities without becoming disorganized do they have a chance to develop the capacity to play with other children, engage in simple group activities and deal with more complex issues.
To foster resilience in children it is important that we do everything we can to create homes and schools that are safe, joyful, playful places before catastrophic events take place. If children are to have the maximum opportunity to recover from potentially traumatizing experiences. Every effort should be made to promote children’s health and well-being by providing them with opportunities to sing, dance and play musical instruments.
Children are far more likely to comply with new health requirements such as mask wearing if they are nurtured for resilience and observe the grown-ups they care about practice good hygiene during this time of the COVID-19 virus. Mothers and fathers who care for their children will not question for a moment the importance of wearing masks, washing hands frequently and observing social distancing.
After a catastrophic event, to reestablish schools as learning environments that care for the health and well-being of children, as well as their academic development, there is much that can be done before such events take place. If children are to be prepared for life’s uncertainties, including catastrophes both large and small, they will need much more than the current unhealthy practices now prevalent in our schools preparing children for so many unnecessary tests - especially during and in the aftermath of COVID-19.
Nine: Can you comment on the increased use of technology and the decrease of reading, children and parents, and what can be done?
In US universities there are courses you can take on embracing artificial intelligence and technology and pioneering their integration in human societies, while in the UK, at the Center for the Study of Existential Risks (CSER) at the University of Cambridge, artificial intelligence and the use of technology are studied as creating potentially cataclysmic risks to humanity.
The important point here is that AI can be used for both good and bad purposes. In schools many commercial programs for students are just digital workbooks instead of paper workbooks. AI can separate, isolate, and distort social learning, and can also interfere with social interactions. On the other hand it can connect and create opportunities for people to communicate around the world - as we are doing now - and provide opportunities for them to work together and unite around a common cause, for example, by using family literacy to bring peace and justice and achieve sustainable development.
Before technology, Chomsky’s question: “Why can mosquitoes fly in the rain?” would have been almost impossible for many students in schools and universities to answer. It would take a big chunk of time to address this question without technology, but it can be answered with research on a computer by five year olds as easily as by college students. The expansive range of responses to the question include YouTube physics lessons combined with actual experiences of observing mosquitoes fly in the rain could be an exceptional transdisciplinary experience. What would be completely unacceptable is if the question why mosquitoes fly in the rain is turned into the most boring, pedestrian, mind-numbing informational processing lesson based on a transmission model of teaching and learning.
Let’s come back to the question of the increase in technology and the decrease in reading. A while back there was an expectation that the days of reading books were numbered. We were all expected to switch to tablets. Actually, this has not happened. Books have held their own and the data indicates that people are attached to books more than ever. Young adult novels have almost taken over adult fiction. Once a genre that was “less than” other forms of novels, YA novels have become a genre that is highly successful, and authors who write them celebrate their love of YA books.
So technology might actually be having a positive impact on reading, but there are problems with the use of technology in families taking parents’ attention away from their children. Before COVID-19 I had dinner in a restaurant, and there was a mother at the next table who did not look up from her phone even to eat, let alone attend to her children. At another table two brothers were playing video games throughout their entire meal, while the adults at the table ate, conversed, and enjoyed each other’s company. Neither situation is good for children. A workshop on the family’s use of technology would be a good idea - especially in families where there are young children and youth.
Ten: How can we encourage government spending to be more effective and less wasteful to reach families in both at risk communities here in the US and in most regions in the world?
This is an immense question. It is a time of global instability, which is worrying to families who are losing ground wherever they live. Governments of every UN member state have an ethical responsibility to become first responders and re-vision their support of families.
But it is also a time of hope and possibility. People in the US and in many countries around the world have stood up against racism. For the past three weeks (May - June, 2020) day after day, 100,000 people have been out on the streets protesting the treatment of black and brown people in the US, and the protest spread around the world. Now, as I write, the House of Representatives and the Senate are discussing new legislation to transform policing. Similar discussions are taking place at the state and local levels.
The indisputable message is that the people of the world can and do step up to protest racism, and to push down the risks of the COVID-19 virus by wearing masks, washing hands and social distancing. People can influence their governments and bring about transformative change.
But mass protests aren’t the only way to encourage the support of caring communities in which families can live peacefully and children can thrive. It is possible to foster partnerships that enhance collaborative initiatives that are inclusive and transparent, and that facilitate communication between diverse stakeholders to influence funding family literacy projects to bring about positive change.
Even if you are following a life-long trajectory of research in a similar way to me, it is possible to bring about change. In this context I am immensely grateful to the Women’s Federation For World Peace International for the opportunity to present my research through the webinar and to highlight the incredible local family literacy projects and initiatives that are going on around the world.
Through the family literacy webinar, the WFWPI collaboration has shone a spotlight on the work of caring practitioners who have established family literacy projects and programs around the world for almost 40 years. WFWPI has fostered opportunities to enhance and amplify the global reach of the findings of the meta-analysis of family literacy initiatives in UN member states, and the campaign to establish a family literacy global peace project. The webinar was open, inclusive and transparent. All of the documents were in the commons, and our hope is that the experience of participation will encourage everyone to take the next step - however big or small that might be.
Here are three solid research findings of the three-year analysis of family literacy in UN member states that might facilitate collaboration and communication between diverse groups with different histories but sharing concern for the well-being of families.
The first stand-out finding is that family literacy projects and initiatives are integral to/and in keeping with the UN Resolution, Adopted by the General Assembly 27 April 2016, which is outlined in the 70/262 Review of the United Nations Peacebuilding Architecture.
There are family literacy initiatives in many UN Member States that fulfill the following aspects of the UN peacebuilding architecture. Here are the talking points about these family literacy initiatives that could help your discussions with groups who are considering working with you, and with funding agencies who might provide money. The UN peacebuilding architecture and family literacy initiatives:
Encourage coherence, synergies, and complementarities;
Recognize that development, peace and security, and human rights, are interlinked and mutually reinforcing;
Respond to the high human cost and suffering caused by armed conflicts;
Recognize the importance to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war;
Recognize and participate in the struggle to establish a just and lasting peace all over the world;
Ensure that the needs of all segments of the population are taken into account;
Encompass activities aimed at preventing the outbreak, escalation, continuation and recurrence of conflict, addressing root causes, ... moving towards recovery, reconstruction and development;
Stress that civil society can play an important role in efforts to sustain peace;
Promote sustained and sustainable economic growth, poverty eradication, social development, and sustainable development;
Support “gender equity and respect for, and protection of, human rights and fundamental freedoms;
Recognizing also that the scale and nature of the challenge of sustaining peace calls for close strategic and operational partnerships ... (including) civil society organizations, women’s groups, youth organizations;
Reaffirming the important role of women in peacebuilding;
Noting the substantial link between women’s full and meaningful involvement in efforts to prevent, resolve and rebuild from conflict and those efforts’ effectiveness and long- term sustainability;
Stressing, in this regard, the importance of women’s equal participation in all efforts for maintenance and promotion of peace and security and the need to increase women’s role in decision-making with regard to conflict prevention and resolution and peacebuilding;
Reaffirming also the important role youth can play in the prevention and resolution of conflicts and as a key aspect of the sustainability, inclusiveness and success of peacekeeping and peacebuilding efforts.
The critical point here is that the meta-analysis of family literacy initiatives and projects in UN Member States underscores the importance that recognition be given to the peace sustaining opportunities that family literacy creates to connect peacebuilding challenges with solutions at the local, regional and global scales.
The second stand-out research finding is that: The three-year meta-analysis of family literacy initiatives in UN member states has become integral to/and in keeping with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). There are many papers on my website that focus on family literacy and the SDGs. Once again here is a brief list of talking points to facilitate communications with diverse groups:
Family literacy projects in UN member states often reflect the systemic complexity of the UN SDGs, forming signature constellations that are unique to the local, country and region in which the initiatives were established. For example, many locally defined family literacy projects focus on SDGs: 4 (Education), 10 (Reducing Inequality), 13 (Climate Action) and 16 (Peace and Justice);
There is evidence that family literacy initiatives increase cohesion and reduce fragmentation by responding to local, regional, and global situations that are deleterious to the health and wellbeing, and even the survival of vulnerable families. This combination of factors creates many opportunities for locally defined innovative change that could be globally transformative in the spirit of the 2030 SDG Agenda, building effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels;
It is inspiring testimony to the universal applicability of family literacy that stakeholders, including UN Member States, UN Officials, NGOs, the private sector and academia, often form partnerships;
The beneficiaries are families, especially women and children, displaced families, asylum seekers, refugees, survivors of armed conflict, and families in recovery from weather related catastrophes and other man-made disasters;
Often family literacy initiatives are locally defined. In Moldova programs focus on supporting the Roma, in South Africa on knowledge-sharing about HIV and support for family members impacted by AIDS, and in Iraq and Afghanistan on children and adult family members experiencing PTSD.
The third stand-out research finding is that: family literacy is now ubiquitous as an organizing principle – a way of framing reading and writing programs for children, their families, and communities throughout the world.
Forty years of ethnographic research and the three year meta-analysis of family literacy in UN member states provides ample evidence of how vital family literacy is to cohesion and reducing fragmentation within communities. Family literacy initiatives include the efforts by local communities, as well as regional and international organizations, to overcome the enormous challenges confronting families as they endeavor to live healthy, productive and peaceful lives.
There is also research evidence that people who can read and are healthier, happier and live longer than people who don’t, that women and girls who are educated have fewer children, and those they do have are twice as likely to survive.
There is also evidence to support the statement that for every 1% increase in a country’s literacy rate, there is a permanent 1.5% increase in its gross national product. And that illiteracy costs the global economy $1.19 trillion each year.
Family literacy has become a vital and successful way of promoting literacy in families and communities that improves life circumstances and increases the literacy levels in many UN Member States. Based upon available data, most, if not all, UN Member States have family literacy programs that:
Create systems of care for children and their families (Global);
Provide books and informational materials (Global);
Nurture and sustain literacy as a shared and valuable skill (Global);
Encourage parents and children to read for pleasure and for information (Global);
Provide opportunities to write and share family stories (Global);
Promote a community-wide culture of reading (Global);
Respond to the local literacy needs of children, families and communities (Global);
Empower new learners by tapping into literacy traditions and practices supported by family networks (Global);
Establish innovative family literacy programs that are multi-categorical (Global).
In Conclusion
I hope my responses to your questions are useful. I have answered them in depth because they are very serious questions. It is entirely possible that some participants in the webinar will take up the challenge to discuss the possibilities of a global family literacy peace project with representatives of UN member states, as well as with leaders in local communities who have the capacity to establish actionable initiatives to support families across the globe who so urgently need our help. I am putting my trust in you to work separately and collectively in partnerships and solidarity to overcome the problems confronting families, countries, and the world.
Family Literacy in the time of COVID-19: Impacts Now and Moving Forward (Video and Presentation Download PDF)
Watch Women’s Federation for World Peace, International “Family Literacy in the Time of Covid-19: Impacts Now and Moving Forward”.