Video - Panel Three: Literacy for Economic Self-Sufficiency

Gerri Elliot, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Worldwide Public Sector
Krishna Mohan Rao, Ph.D, Deputy Director, Directorate of Adult Education, Government of Andhra Pradesh, India
Regina Celia Esteves de Siqueira, Chief Executive Officer, AlfaSol Brazil
Koumba Boly Barry, Coordinator, Directorate for Development and Cooperation, Program for Literacy and Training, Burkina Faso

MS. ELLIOT: First Lady Laura Bush, Barbara Bush, First Spouses, Your Excellencies, and other distinguished guests, welcome to the topic of Literacy and Self Sufficiency. Now we talked about in the other panels about how literacy is linked to healthy families and healthy societies. We're going to talk about how it's linked to making a healthy living.

We already know that literacy is linked to social and political empowerment. Let's talk about how it's linked to economic empowerment.

And we know that the linkages are real. Studies have shown, very simply, that a one level increase in literacy can mean an average 10 percent increase in income. This is particularly important for women across the globe, as we know that greater economic empowerment leads to greater respect.

We also know that literacy is critical for generating broad economic development across countries or regions. There is a three decade OECD study that looked at the difference in the economic growth of the particular countries, and more than 50 percent of the difference was linked to a direct investment in human capital, in education, in skills training.

Literacy can break the cycle of chronic poverty, and economic self sufficiency can break the cycle of illiteracy. They go hand in hand. Research shows that as family's income level rises, so does the likelihood that the children of that family will attend school. You're going to hear about that firsthand from some of our panelists.

So the objective of this panel is to talk about the link of the ability to read and write, and add and subtract with economic opportunity. But what makes the programs of these panelists so interesting is that they focused on the challenges of relevancy, sustainability, scale, and replicability.

Now why is relevancy important? Relevancy drives participation and increases the overall success rates of the literacy programs. You will stay in the classroom if you see and believe that the knowledge that you're getting is going to help you earn a living.

In fact, UNESCO and other have clearly shown and when literacy is combined with skills training to generate an income, and you add in the opportunity for micro crediting or micro financing, the success rate of the literacy programs is dramatically improved.

These programs that you're going to hear about today are relevant. You'll also hear about how they address the challenge of scale, not only reaching thousands of citizens but millions of citizens. And our panelists know about that being from India, Brazil, and Africa. Each one of the panelists will share how their programs are self sustaining, that they don't peter out once the initial funding or focus dies away.

And lastly, the good news is that each one of these programs are replicable. I call them literacy franchises. You can drop these into your countries tomorrow and hopefully have the same success that these panelists have had.

So let me introduce our remarkable panel of experts. I'm going to first introduce all of them to you, and I want to thank them for being so flexible. We're going to do this panel a little differently than the other panels. We're going to make it a little interactive, and I'm going to ask them a set of three questions.

First off, I really want to know what was the challenge or challenges that they faced; what exactly did they implement; and what were the real results that they had. That's actually question one.

Question two is all about the lessons learned, what worked and, almost more importantly, what didn't work.

And the third question is all about the challenges that they face going forward. What are the next steps to make their programs thrive and continue to make the progress that they've had?

So first is Dr. Krishna Mohan Rao. Dr. Rao is deputy director of the Directorate of Adult Education for the government of Andra Pradesh, which is India's fifth largest state. He has 20 years experience working this problem, and he's been recognized by his government and educational institutions for his groundbreaking work in literacy.

Next is Regina Celia Estevez. She is the chief executive officer for AlfaSol, which means solidarity in literacy. It's a nonprofit organization working across Brazil to eradicate illiteracy. Her organization has focused primarily on developing public private partnerships to achieve her goal, and her organization has been recognized by the United Nations as one of the top ten best practices around the world. Because of that, she's helped other countries across Latin America, as well as Asia, and Africa implement her program.

The final panelist is Dr. Koumba Boly Barry. She is the coordinator of the Swiss directorate for development and cooperation for the program for literacy and training in Burkina Faso. She is a professor and researcher, and she holds a PhD in economic history specializing in education. And she is a leader in bringing alternative approaches to education across Africa. She's going to talk about her Alpha program in Burkina Faso. So welcome, and thanks for coming from so far away to talk about your success.

I'd like to start with Dr. Rao and his program called Akshara Mahila Andhra. Dr. Rao asked me to talk a little bit about the challenges he faced and set up his talk about his program. Dr. Rao has 80 million people in the state of Andhra Pradesh. Twenty two percent of them live below the poverty line. Fifty percent of the women in his state are literate compared to 70 percent of the men, so he had to get really creative to fix this problem.

One of the wonderful things that he did was to start a pilot in the western region of Andhra Pradesh, Quadadria, Andhra Pradesh, where he conducted a successful pilot using existing self help groups across that state. It was so successful that the state decided to implement the program across all of Andhra Pradesh, an he told me yesterday it will be implement across India. The program has reached 6 million women in the last six years. So Dr. Rao, I was wondering if you could talk about your particular program, why you chose to conduct literacy training through these self help organizations and how does the training take place in these small groups.

DR. RAO: Thank you. Mrs. Laura Bush, First Lady of the United States; Excellencies, ladies, and gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to be part of the conference on global literacy.

The Akshara Mahila program was designed at women's self help groups, and established the link between literacy and poverty elevation programs. Actually, it is quite different from traditional literacy programs, which follow a campaign approach. It adapted a group based approach.

Women's self help group is taken as the unit for literacy instruction. Generally in (inaudible) programs and self help groups, a group consists of 10 to 20 people who are women in a village. Each pays a monthly deposit and then gets the right to receive (inaudible) from the common fund or revolving fund provided by the government.

In these activities, the groups help record money transactions and interact with the officials and banks. It was found that illiteracy of the members was a major hurtle in effective functioning of the group. They were also lacking the groups having more number of illiterates were lagging behind in getting benefit from the skill training programs, especially (inaudible) all the elevation* programs for the benefit of these women.

So they were keen to improve their literacy skills. To meet this demand and need particularly, we conceived Akshara Mahila program. Akshara Mahila program mainly relied on the spirit of self help.

In women's self help groups, the members pool their resources and their funds to get benefit from the economic activity. In the same way, literate members can share literacy skills with the non literate members. This is the basic logic behind this program.

Actually, the program was designed in such a way that each group identifies its non literate members, then selects a volunteer who is an educated person within the group. In case, such an educated person is not available in the group, they request the services of another educated person.

And the selected volunteers are trained on a regular basis on teaching learning matters by the government. So these people taught the to the non literates, and that is how we implemented the program.

MS. ELLIOT: Talk a little bit about the kinds of techniques that you use, the motivational techniques, the books that you use, because you're very unique in terms of the program costing only 50 cents per student. So talk about that innovation.

DR. RAO: Actually, we designed new primers to suit the learning needs of the specific women's self help groups. The content of the primer basically focused on the issues relevant to day to day life of the (inaudible.)

We followed alphabetic method, even though there are many other methods to teach others, because this method is simple. An instructress with limited qualifications and training can teach in the alphabetic method. In this method, we start with the letters and then the letters are combined into words and eventually sentences.

Actually, one major challenge in any literacy program is to sustain the enthusiasm of the learner through the course. To tackle this problem, we integrate illiteracy with the traditional and cultural life of the people.

In India we have different festivals, for example, Diwali, festival of lights, we celebrate every year. We celebrated Diwali as a literacy festival, literacy of lights, in all literacy classes. Similarly New Year Festival, we celebrate it as the literacy festival of the new year.

The issue you mentioned was the cost. One major characteristic of our program is it is one of the lowest cost when compared to any other literacy program. We spend nearly half a dollar on teaching learning material.

Such a low cost is possible because of the voluntary services of the instructors. We don't need spend any expenditure on specifically for (inaudible) what we call publicity or infrastructure. The groups themselves provided the accommodation for running the classes.

MS. ELLIOT: You've had some great success, but help us with what worked and what didn't work for your pilot and the six year rollout.

DR. RAO: Well, the most important lessons we've drawn from Akshara Mahila experience are that literacy programs and livelihood enhance programs, when linked, prove to reinforce each other. It does not only prove to reinforce the life of the participating women, but also helps them to break the traditional and cultural barriers for empowerment. This is most important.

The other social impact very important is the increasing enrollment of school children in the (inaudible) schools. For example, in the (inaudible) district, where we initially started the program, the number of school out of school children, are schooled out of course, went down from 85,000 at the time of starting the program to 12,000 by the end of the program. And the data clearly indicates that enrollment of children have improved in (inaudible) households.

Another impact of this program is it promoted general equity and empowered woman to participate actually and effectively in the decision making process in their families and communities as well. Nearly 90 percent of the women who participated in the literacy program expressed the view that they now are able to effectively participate in their and more confident assertive, and their status in their families has improved considerably after the acquired the literacy skills.

Participation of large number of groups led to the formation of new groups, and there was an increase in their savings and (inaudible) fund. For example, again, quoting from Estradowdy where we conducted a study, "The total (inaudible) fund has increased from $5 million before launching the program to $28 million by the end of the program." Nearly 50 percent of the learners who participated in the program told that they could now add more because of their newly acquired skills and knowledge.

MS. ELLIOT: Dr. Rao, one last question quickly, challenges from here? Six million women is an incredible accomplishment, but what is left to do?

DR. RAO: One major challenge is to ensure that 620,000 women's self help groups in Andhra Pradesh, which are presently having a membership of their own 7.8 million, to become part of the literacy program. Similarly, another major issue is to ensure that different learning needs of these group women are catered to (inaudible) in continuing education facilities.

Finally, one major challenge is that we are planning to achieve 85 percent literacy from not within 50 percent literacy of women's literacy.

MS. ELLIOT: From 50 to 85 percent?

DR. RAO: To 85 percent by the end of the (inaudible.) This is what we that is what we plan.

MS. ELLIOT: Great, thank you Dr. Rao.

Next I want to turn to Regina Estevez. And Regina is going to talk about her organization, AlfaSol and the 5 million women learners that she has touched since 1997.

And that figure is remarkable, but beyond the numbers, I would love you to talk about two particular aspects of your program. One was the fact that you truly focused on public private partnerships to fix this problem. But second was the focus on life long learning. And I was particularly impressed by her statistics that said that 70 percent of the students that finished her program went on to additional schooling, and 30 percent of the teachers went on to advanced education as well.

So Regina, tell us about your program and those two particular aspects of it. And Regina is going to speak in Portugese.

MS. ESTEVEZ: Mrs. Laura Bush. I think that in order to understand this, we have to understand how solidarity and private and public partnerships can reach people, communities, and nations.

We work with literacy during eight months, but this is considered just the first step because the focus is the continuity of education so that students can have access to education throughout life. So we establish partnerships with local governments, so that we can have public policies that will ensure the schooling of these students. We give priorities to poor communities with children starting from 15 years old on.

We have partnerships with private initiatives and companies that will split the costs with the government. We also work with universities that carry out an educational work, training the teachers and following up what's happening with these communities. We also work with NGOs and different institutions.

So it's all of these institutions brought together, and the financial resources, and the human resources that allow us to have a cost of $9 per student during the course of these eight months.

But we also focus the methodological diversity in our teaching. We give freedom for the universities to choose the methodology they will be working with in accordance with each group they will be working with. Like this, we can put this into context and help this student understand how they can apply the skills he is acquiring or she is acquiring by learning their reading skills and the math skills.

We can say, in a small city, pick up a text from a local newspaper and get the students involved in what is being discussed locally. For housewives and students who work in the households, we can apply general ideas of nutrition.

In terms of math, we also place this in context to give the students the right tools that will help the student break the cycle of poverty. In a small, fisherman community, we can teach this process by discussing the seasons of the year, or how you measure temperature, how you weigh your product, the kind of trade relationships they have, and therefore improving their income and also allowing them to become better citizens.

I would like to give an example by telling the story of Lucilani, who was a teacher and became a local coordinator. She brought for the program another colleague called Francisca, who was teaching her mother how to read and write.

And when these women learned the word corporation, they realized how they could put together a small company. They started manufacturing chocolate, and they have been so successful that they are now working with other projects.

Not only have they been able to generate employment for their communities, but they have been able also to increase the income of the families. So with that, these people, they are able to see their lives, and their desires, and their needs put into context for their learning program.

(Interruption to translation.) private initiative works with government in order to promote this initiative and to serve a greater number of people who learn many, many lessons with this experience. We learned, for instance, that first it's necessary to have multidimensional programs which combine literacy with something else, for instance technology access, reading, teaching training, all together.

Those who teach reading also are members of the community, and therefore they have to be deeply involved in this. They have chosen by universities. They are the ones who seek the students, and they are the ones who ensure continuity on the part of the students' different methods.

It would be impossible to in a country like Brazil to use only one method. So we think it's very productive to, of course, choose different methods and set everything within the right context.

The partnership models that have been copied by other countries, I must say, allow us not only to get financial resources to them but also allows us to mobilize human resources who come and support this action, and cost it's cheaper then. And that will be, of course, embraced, and ownership on the part of community is also guaranteed because it is the community that finds them rooms, that provides the students, who guarantees their continuity in the classroom. And it is the community who also, if you will, brings financial resources.

Also, we've heard here today that all these experiences provide for many different methods, many different tools, and that's why we have a web page, a portal that allows anybody in the world to know what we're doing and how we do it in Brazil, and therefore we can share our experiences.

MS. ELLIOT: and didn't work, and what challenges you have ahead of you?

MS. ESTEVEZ: In Brazil, there are about 16 million Brazilians who are illiterate, so to serve all of this population and to include them in the market, under the commercial market, is very important.

And therefore we have to ensure continuity of schooling and NGOs must work together with governments in that regard, so that kids come and learn to read with us but then continue to go to school through the school system. It's essential to Brazil to respond to this demand but also to include these children in schools later.

MS. ELLIOT: so we're going to go to Dr. Barry. Since 1997, the activities of your Alpha program have had a direct and an indirect impact on approximately half a million people in Burkina Faso.

The study indicates that 90 percent of the women that went through your literacy program attained financial autonomy. And it was particularly because of the small groups that they formed as well as the savings and loaned fund that they had developed.

So tell us about the Alpha program, and how it worked in Burkina Faso.

DR. BARRY: Thank you Madam Laura Bush, dear guests, good morning. Distinguished representatives of Burkina Faso because Burkina Faso is represented by our First Lady, Madame Chantal Compaoré she is accompanied by the Minister of Education as well as by the Ambassador of Burkina Faso to the United States. I would like to thank you for your commitment.

I would like to say that Burkina Faso is a beautiful country with 60 ethnic groups who live there and 12 million citizens. But Burkina Faso is also a country that is facing many challenges.

We have challenges because the economic basis of Burkina Faso today is mostly agriculture, and when you look when you realize that agriculture is the economic basis, you understand that women who live off agriculture represent agricultural percent of agricultural labor. It's really important to convey these figures because the women are also illiterate in Burkina Faso up to a rate of 90 percent, and 52 percent of these women live below the threshold of poverty.

These are also the challenges of my country, and the educational system is such but here we have to pay tribute to the government because the education budget today in Burkina Faso is attempting to increase by up to 30 percent, to spend up to 30 percent on education. But we must acknowledge that between 1997 and 1998, this was only one percent of this budget which was dedicated to literacy programs and to child education. So to the livelihood the life forces for the economic and social development of the country so I am talking about women here who are mostly illiterate.

And when we part of the Alpha program team, because it is true, I did start a program with a very small, dynamic, motivated team thanks to Swiss cooperation programs, and we asked ourselves many questions: What should we do? How should go about doing it?

We came up with two strategies. Number one, we have to reduce this poverty in rural areas, this poverty which touches mostly women, we must strengthen capabilities by developing skills. Number two focus strategically was to engage in a political dialogue, a strong political dialogue with the government, but also with our other ethnic and financial partners which are involved in our country, so that they become responsible, that they become empowered of the various challenges that I mentioned.

And then we said, "How shall we do this?" Well, we attempted, in a first phase, to work with 24 national languages. As I said, Burkina Faso has 60 ethnic groups. But it is indeed true that we have four major languages. You already touched 90 percent of our (inaudible.) So these national languages will allow us to cover the entire national territory.

We also attempted to work with most of the key players, namely the rural organization, which works at the grassroots level, but most of all, the most marginalized groups, namely the women. For example, women's HIV positive groups, handicapped people, widows, orphaned children who also need education. We also worked with the communities, the counselors, for example, people from the municipal council who were in charge of the local business, but those people were also illiterate.

We also worked on education by developing educational innovations. And with respect to this dynamic of education in a multilingual mode because that is also the future of the country, it is a way of validating.

At the end of this we had to reach these people who do not speak French because our common language is French. So we tried to work from the ethnic language up to French with an NGO, with a Swiss organization and another organization.

And also the government helped because the National Literacy Council created a literacy program which is a (inaudible) method, which also helps women. For example, women who attend these programs, they don't need to learn various types of words because some of these words don't mean any of them. But what's important to them is if you get in touch with their daily lives perhaps these women know tomatoes. They see, for example, shea butter. They have some small activities that generate income. If you ask them to tell you about her daily activities, why she has made a profit, why she did this or that, how those are the types of things that touch their daily lives; how she manages her daily activities. And based on this text, this narrative that she will create, she will start learning.

Beyond what she will learn, you will also help her in problem solving skills. And then she learns to trust herself, to have self confidence, and she will better manage her economic activity.

So that's what the Alpha program attempted to develop in the country. And I do believe that what is fundamental because beyond the figures is that, above all, the qualitative aspects.

One of the qualitative aspects of our program can be explained by a woman called Ilah. And this is a woman called Owalah. And this is also the story of 10 thousand 100 thousand other women of Burkina Faso who took profit from this program.

This woman was a widow. She had seven children, and she was poor. And this is basically important because it's through literacy that she was able to develop activities that allowed her ultimately to have some income but today she is the press advisor she's a journalist in her national language, and she writes in a newspaper. She is read; she is well known, this woman. And that's also what literacy is all about.

And, as I said, beyond the figures, beyond the data, it's this qualitative notion because 38 percent of women stated that they truly gained better income thanks to the literacy programs. These are craftswomen, these are farmers that improved their methods because their cattle raising even they improved their cattle raising skills through the programs.

MS. ELLIOT: what worked, what didn't work, and where are you going from here with your program?

DR. BARRY: Well, that which worked the best it's mostly the partnership which was established because the program Alpha, we started at a very small scale, but today, the government for Burkina Faso is trying to work with all of our partners both financially but also in the private sector.

But it's also a civic society civil society. We have established a fund which is the literacy fund and education fund, and this has made it so that originally we had only 20 thousand participants in the beginning, but now we have 200 thousand people involved.

So it's true it's very important to retain this. You have to go from 20 thousand trainees up to 200 thousand. That's the first result, and I think that's the first impact, and that has allowed us to succeed.

I do believe that what is also important, which remains a challenge for the future, is basically the fact that all of these institutions work together, the educators, but once again we need other technical and financial partners because we have to continue to realize that literacy is a fundamental pillar for development. And that has to be said. And my communication goes against the grain, against the conventional wisdom, as a matter of fact.

MS. ELLIOT: Well, we've reached the end of our time, and I hope that we've covered some important ground in terms of talking about the link between literacy and economic self sufficiency. Obviously, they are mutually reinforcing.

For each of the panelists, you I hope you saw clear results. Literacy means a better living and a better life not only for the adult learners but for their children as well.

And we heard a resounding consensus from the panelists that local context is absolutely everything. If we can tie literacy programs to the practical economic challenges that they're facing in their communities, then we can convince citizens that they have a personal stake in participating in these programs.

Each of these programs also underscored the vital need for public private partnerships. Whether it's private industries, government, grassroots organizations, educational institutions, we need each other's knowledge; we need each other's resources to fix the problem.

And since I'm the only moderator from the private sector, I want to send out a plea to the private sector globally to get involved, to step up, to help us fix this problem. This problem is big enough, and there's a whole lot of room for everybody to participate in it.

A small example of a great partnership is what the U.S. State Department has done teaming up with Fortune magazine and private businesses across the U.S. in mentoring up and coming businesswomen from around the world. And I was pleased to be a participant in that and mentor a young woman from the Czech Republic this year.

I am a technologist, so I can't end without saying that, in this new era of information and globalization, that you need basic literacy before you can take the step to digital literacy, before you can even become of the digital age. The opportunities that this digital age provides us, they vanish without basic literacy, and the digital divide can become even wider. So basic literacy is no longer just an endpoint, but it's a foundation for further learning and endless opportunity.

So thank you again, Mrs. Bush and the organizers of this conference. Please give a warm thank you to our panelists who came from so far away.