Literacy program reaching young readers

Submitted by CAMO on Thu, 09/04/2014 - 1:23pm

SANTA ROSA -- Eight-year-old Indira lives with her grandmother near Santa Rosa de Copan, Honduras. She loves poetry and dreams of one day teaching school. But up until recently, her only sources of stories and poems were her grandmother and her teacher because her school had no library.

 All that changed very recently thanks to the CAMO Literacy Program.

The CAMO Literacy Program started as a pilot program to place educationally appropriate Spanish book libraries in 5 rural public schools served by the CAMO Dental Program. The CAMO Literacy Program is a collaborative effort of Fundación CAMO, Third World Books, Inc., and Global Mission Action Group at St. Paul’s Church, Cleveland Heights. The CAMO Literacy Committee, made up of educators, librarians, a Spanish teacher, two dental volunteers, and Kathy Tschiegg worked with CAMO Fundación Staff and partnered with Honduran teachers to plan and implement the program. To assess the effectiveness of this program, pre and post-testing with materials from the Honduran Ministry of Education is taking place in the five schools that received books and five schools that did not receive books (control group).

“Again we witnessed the joy that overflowed children in two public education schools, when they received a library containing Fundación CAMO reading books,” CAMO-Honduras Staff reported in an email May 21. The two schools are the most recent beneficiaries of the CAMO Literacy Program. The program kicked off earlier this year with the goal of bringing 100 books, shelving, and library space to each of the five schools.

The pilot program was well received and work is in progress to create libraries in five additional schools. “We’re hoping to reach a total order of at least 625 books for 2014---500 books for the 5 new libraries and at least 25 supplemental books for the each of the pilot school libraries,” states Literacy Program Chair, Ann Farmer.

Indira is just one child in one Honduran school. Many more children are awaiting the joy, adventure, enrichment, and acquisition of skills and opportunity that learning to read provides. Please help by contributing to this important literacy effort by clicking “donate” on this site or by calling (330) 683-5956.