Transforming Our World : Literacy for Sustainable Development

Abstract

The literacy programmes featured in this publication are drawn from every region of the world and testify to the central role of literacy in responding to sustainable development challenges such as health, social equality, economic empowerment and environmental sustainability. Most literacy programmes set out to combine at least two of the three dimensions of sustainable development – social equality, economic empowerment and environmental sustainability – and many of them target women, as in the case of the Functional Literacy Programme for Women in Morocco, or vulnerable youth, as with Basic Literacy and Vocational Training for Young Adults in Haiti, or the National Programme for Education and Work in Uruguay. While a few programmes address the needs of urban population groups, such as adolescents living and working in Cairo’s Garbage City, for example, most of them are community-based and serve rural populations. The Rural Literacy programme for adults in Slovenia is one example. Some programmes, such as Teaching the Nomads in the Wild in the hill state of Uttarakhand in India, are even reaching out to nomadic and isolated minorities by using ‘mobile teachers’.