TWO Australian teachers who taught at Su’u Secondary about 30 years ago caught up with a former student who is now the director of LASI.
These teachers have been coming back to the Solomons for the past nine years as part of the ACT 1:8 Mission to teach English phonics and reading in communities.
They come during their school break and stay two weeks in a village.
Now, one went to a training in Malaita and one stayed on Guadalcanal working in many different communities.
Carol (teacher on the right) is in Central Malaita (Langa Langa) doing two trainings which have been sponsored by READ SI and LASI.
The two villages, Busu and Arebala, have literacy teachers attending to learn how to teach reading in English.
Participants are the village residents and in the evening the children and teachers from the local schools come to learn, also.
Kerry (teacher on the left) has been working with groups in Honiara and at Tenaru. Both teachers are very experienced and left secondary teaching years ago to work in primary schools in Brisbane.
They have come to the Solomons using their own savings just to do service and out of their love of learning and teaching.
They believe that teaching is a gift from God and a gift that must be shared.
After teaching in Central Malaita, the ACT 1:8 team,led by Kim Whitmore, will travel to East Malaita, sponsored by World Vision.
Their mission is to teach literacy through phonics, words, sentences and writing – to be able to sound out words and get meaning from them.
Their goal is to raise literacy levels in as many communities as they can. What is needed now are BOOKS, BOOKS, BOOKS!!!
To keep reading levels up and advancing, people need books to read. MPs receive CDF and a part of that is to be used for education.
MPs are asked to really assist their communities by getting these literacy trainings to their people and buy them books so they can start libraries.
READ SI, LASI and World Vision can help in this process.
MPs and their CDOs need to contact literacy service providers to start the process of a literacy campaign in their constituencies.
It is human right to learn to read and create your own destiny!
