os and literacy: promoting human dignity

john engle englejohn at hotmail.com
Wed Mar 26 14:15:32 PST 2003


ROTARY CLUBS OF HAITI OPEN SPACE TO PROMOTE LITERACY

There were 43 of us that came together--literacy instructers/Reflection
Circle practitioners and Rotarians--on Saturday March 22 for an Open Space
meeting. Our theme was: "How do we make our centers (literacy) and groups
(Reflection Circles) more dynamic, and, how do we improve communication
between ourselves?"

12 subjects emerged from among the participants for small group discussions
during morning sessions: 10-11 and 11-12. We reconvened from noon to 12:30,
inviting participants to propose subjects for the afternoon session which
would allow them to get specific about action plans. 7 new subjects emerged.
We took a break for lunch from 12:30 to 1:30 and the afternoon session went
from 1:30 to 2:30.

While this was the first experience in Open Space for some, the majority of
the group has participated in numerous Open Space events. It is very clear
to me that Open Space is impacting the way that the groups and literacy
centers are functioning.

During our 1 and a half hours together during report back and discussion as
a group, at the end of the day, a literacy teacher/high school student from
Louverture Cleary School commented, "Our work is all about helping
participants to discover their value as human beings. It’s all about helping
them to realize that each and every one of them is an important part of
society and that we all share the responsibility for improving our society.
Sometimes participants in my center talk about their objective of becoming
comfortable speaking in public --'in society.' To them, society is the
President; people in parliament or the Director of the school
well-known
people like Mme Bello, etc. I tell them, ‘You are society! We are the
public! And, you are speaking in public when you are expressing your ideas
in this group.’"

Another literacy teacher shared, "I meet with each of my participants
individually when beginning a new cycle. I need to get to know them and to
learn what their individual objectives are for learning to read and write.
They need to know that I care about them. After all, helping people learn
how to read and write is all about love made concrete."

I have been involved in promoting literacy in Haiti since 1991. Today, I
notice that much more than before, literacy teachers understand that there
work is about serving participants needs. We heard from one after another,
"I invite participants to identify their objectives in learning to read and
write and to share them with everyone." "If we are not tolerant and
patient--helpful--participants become discouraged and don't return. If they
don't return, they won't learn how to read and write."

I believe this notion of passion and responsibility is “infecting” literacy
teachers’ attitudes. In addition to this, literacy teachers and group
leaders recognize that people learning to read and write do not hesitate to
use the law of two feet when they discover that they are in a space where
they feel they are neither learning or contributing.

It’s important to note that virtually everyone who attends these meetings
pays a sliding scale fee. While we have grants to subsidize expenses—so many
of the literacy teachers and Reflection Circle practitioners are desperately
poor—we believe it to be critically important that people are investing
something more than their time along, to be present.


http://www.beyondborders.net/experiment.htm

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