The Freedom of Literacy

Okay,  I'm unveiling my passion to the Patch Community, I'm building a national awareness campaign, a megaphone, a unified voice on behalf of literacy, one step at a time - with the Bay Area as the pilot project.  My virtual office spans the Menlo Park and East Palo Alto communities, thanks especially to Menlo Park Library, Portola Valley Library, and Menlo Park Le Boulanger's. 

Since we just celebrated July 4th - it seems even more apropro to publicly acknowledge this calling that has grown inside of me, that just won't go away.  For millions of people, literacy is a tool for freedom.  Freedom and confidence are two of the most often used words with the learners I've worked with and gotten to know in the Menlo Park and Bay Area community.

"Literacy is indeed a tool of freedom, vital for liberating us from ignorance, vital for empowering us to develop and apply our human capacities, vital for the exercise of democratic citizenship. This is why the lack of literacy among one in five of the world’s adults is such a shameful thing—not, let me add, for those lacking literacy skills but for the rest of us who take the practice and benefits of literacy for granted. We must do more to spread literacy; by doing so, we shall spread hope and opportunity, especially for women and the poor.”  - Koïchiro Matsuura, director-general of UNESCO, on the occasion of the launch of the United Nations Literacy Decade, November 2011 - http://proliteracyinternational.blogspot.com/2011/11/literacy-tool-of-fr...

Future bloggings will explain my journey to this cause and mission.

Happy Reading!

Kristi