In pictures: family literacy in the Philippines

In pictures: family literacy in the Philippines

Glitter Moreño shows photos of a rural project in the Philippines. Parents are learning basic skills with their children. The Awagoh Learning and Development Center (ALDC) is a non-profit organization in the Philippines. It wants to ‘Empower Through Literacy’.

Glitter Moreño, from Cauayan, Negros Island, started the ALDC in 2009. Glitter believes that literacy and education are the most important things to help people in Cauayan know and to fight for their rights.

ALDC is a small, new organization. It is fighting to get the government and other organizations to support its work.

The ALDC runs the Adult Literacy Curriculum (ALC) to teach adults, including the elderly, how to read and write. ALC started last August in the village of Patol, an hour and a half’s walk from the main road.

Every Thursday, the ALDC teaches students on the ALC course in a classroom in Patol Elementary School in the mountains. The oldest student, 63-year-old Servando Chavez, is the village chief.

Stephen Mapus, 49-years-old, is another student. He is a farmer and single parent of two, and he really wants to learn how to read and write. It's great to see him walking home with his son after a day of lessons. Stephen has the lowest literacy in the class and it is difficult for him to help with his sons’ homework. His progress is slow, but he really wants to learn and his children encourage him and remind him to study! Stephen’s confidence is increasing as he learns to read better: the organization wants to make him feel more powerful and to improve his skills.

Getting new students for the course, July-August 2013. Staff and volunteers went around the houses and field, to encourage adults who could not read to go to the ALC programme.

Who's at the door?: volunteers visit a home in the rural village of Patol.

For years, the ALDC has had New Internationalist magazines for students to read or look through in their library. They don’t have many new issues, so if you would like to donate your old copies, please contact them.

See the ALDC website for more details: http://www.awagohldc.org/

As this article has been simplified, the words, text structure and quotes may have been changed. For the original, please see: http://newint.org/features/web-exclusive/2014/03/12/photo-literacy-is-a-family-affair/