Global Literacy Matters

Every day we at ProLiteracy Worldwide are amazed by the new and innovative ways our partners around the globe find to help more people with their literacy programs. We hear of heartwarming stories of how people’s lives have been transformed through these programs. Welcome to ProLiteracy’s International Programs blog. Through this blog, we wish to share with you the joys and successes of literacy that people are experiencing around the world. In addition, this blog will serve as a place to share current news, reports and information pertaining to literacy issues. We would like to welcome all of you to our blog. Your participation is invaluable to us.

ProLiteracy champions the power of literacy to improve the lives of adults and their families, communities, and societies. We envision a world in which everyone can read, write, compute, and use technology to lead healthy, productive, and fulfilling lives. Our international partners champion the power of literacy every day. One of our spotlight programs is MICA (micro c redi t in Africa), a non governmental organization devoted to alleviating poverty in Niger by educating and empowering women. Niger is estimated to be one of the poorest countries in the world with 61% of the population living on less than one dollar per day. Women comprise two-thirds of that population. The literacy statistics are just as sobering -only 28.7% of the population can read or write. MICA is currently providing opportunities for 2,744 women to engage in commercial ventures through its women's literacy and micro enterprise programs as well as leadership workshops, AIDS education, job skill training, fi...

On March 11th, 2009 President Obama signed an Executive Order creating the White House Council on Women and Girls. The mission of the Council will be to provide a coordinated federal response to the challenges confronted by women and girls and to ensure that all Cabinet and Cabinet-level agencies consider how their policies and programs impact women and families. In particular, the Council will work to enhance, support and coordinate the efforts of existing programs for women and girls. The Council will also work as a resource for each agency and the White House so that there is a comprehensive approach to the federal government's policy on women and girls. Although, creation of this council might seem long overdue, it comes as joyful news to organizations such as ProLiteracy, who have worked for years to uplift the lives of women around the world through our women-centered literacy programs. Women, who count for half of the world...