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Literacy Initiatives

ProLiteracy Worldwide and its partners have developed expertise in the following special interest areas:

The International Family Literacy Initiative
The International Family Literacy Initiative (IFLI) fosters projects that teach parents together with their children to read and write. Programs use ProLiteracy's Literacy for Social Change method, which combines literacy instruction with effective parent-child education techniques. Tanzania, Rwanda, and India are current IFLI project sites.

The ProLiteracy Himalayan Initiative
The ProLiteracy Himalayan Initiative links eight partner organizations in China, China/Tibet, Nepal, and Mongolia that combine literacy instruction with health, self-sufficiency, and peace projects. These partners share cultural similarities, high mountain geography, rural isolation, and agricultural and livestock livelihoods, but each responds to distinctive local concerns.

The Literacy and Economic Self-reliance Initiative
This learning-based micro-finance and enterprise program helps residents of poor communities in 34 countries start grassroots savings, credit, and income-generating projects. Participants create, manage, and operate profitable small enterprises in such areas as livestock, crops, prepared food, services, manufactured items, and retail sales.

The Literacy and Peace Initiative
By integrating literacy and peace building, ProLiteracy and its partners in 17 Middle Eastern countries develop non-violent solutions to conflict-based problems. Men, women, and children living in conflict zones, in indigenous communities that struggle with discrimination, in oppressed minority groups, and who are victimized by abuse learn how to avoid and prevent violence in their homes and communities.

The Literacy and HIV-AIDS Prevention, Control, and Treatment Initiative
Through literacy instruction, ProLiteracy helps adults solve acute health problems in their families and communities. In Africa, with ProLiteracy's help, many partner programs have developed effective local-language manuals about HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment.