Community Effort

First of all you need to get your community interested in your idea of starting a literacy class in the community. There are several ways of achieving this. You can either call for a meeting, go door to door or inform the community members, brief the teachers in the nearby Government school ask them to tell their pupils, Make announcement in the churches or put up posters. Engage the community because once the community leaders understand your intentions, then the community support will be there from the beginning.

The Committee

Now that you have gained the community support, you now go ahead and set a Literacy Community committee by conducting elections among the community members, give your new school a name and register the new literacy class with District Education Board Secretary, as this is the office that is responsible for both education of children as well as literacy for adults. There is an office in every district and the schools under them could be of much help to the literacy class.

Find teachers

Find school leavers in the community that completed grade 12 and are currently idle, the opportunity to teach at the literacy class will make them useful for themselves and the community as they even gain experience, when working for community literacy class which will even open new opportunities for them.

By finding teachers within the community, the committee will kill two birds with one stone. Creating career opportunities for school leavers and providing literacy education for all the youth and adults that have missed out school when they were growing up. You can ask the district education Board secretary office to assign one teacher to coach the volunteers and may be teach the literacy class.

Find a place to teach.

Now you need to find a place to teach the youth, women and men. For a start if there is no structure you can start conducting the lessons under the shade of a big leafy tree then later, before the onset of the rainy season you can construct a mud and clay classroom with grass roof on self-help involving the literacy students. If there is a government or community school nearby, a shed that is not used or building owned by the council a private business shad, a church etc. Look around and you will find something to use.

The literacy lessons

The new school should be aware that adults want to learn what they can apply immediately in their day to day life. Other than teaching them how to read ,write and numeracy the literacy class must also include practical skills and across cutting issues such as HIV/AIDS awareness, gender violence and human rights.