Integrated Intergenerational Literacy Project (IILP)

According to URLCODA, the Integrated Intergenerational Literacy Project (IILP) was conceived to promote intergenerational literacy skills and socio-economic development. IILP works to:

• foster the development of literate, peaceful societies through intergenerational learning, lifelong learning, and literacy skills development;
• empower rural families to engage in sustainable livelihood activities;
• foster the active participation of parents, pupils, and local leaders in the development of the education system and schools in their communities;
• equip communities with the livelihood skills needed to improve agricultural productivity, generate income, and overcome poverty;
• promote social empowerment, particularly that of women, in order to prevent domestic violence and to foster inclusive community participation in decision making, leadership and environmental conservation;
• provide mother-child health and nutritional education that equips mothers with the skills needed to improve both their own health and that of their children;
• promote community health education in order to prevent the spread of diseases, especially HIV/AIDS, and address the socio-economic and psychological consequences of poor health by establishing psychosocial support groups and income-generating activities for the infected and affected; and
• provide assistance to HIV and AIDS orphans and other vulnerable children, including girls, in the form of basic school materials that motivate them to remain in school and complete their education.

IILP’s strategy is based on the belief that in order to empower rural communities, it is necessary to foster literacy skills across all age-groups, while paying particular attention to socially disadvantaged and vulnerable groups such as non-literate women and men, HIV-positive people, out-of-school youth, orphans, vulnerable children, and primary school pupils with poor literacy skills. IILP’s approach integrates livelihoods and life skills training into literacy learning, focusing on:

• health education;
• skills training for income-generation activities and poverty eradication;
• agricultural training;
• environmental conservation; and
• the production of relevant and cost-effective homemade/locally made learning materials to support the learning process.

Literacy classes are conducted twice a week in the afternoon. Each literacy centre has an average of 50 - 80 learners and 3 volunteer educators at any given time. Most of the volunteer educators are primary school teachers or medical personnel recruited and trained in adult education by URLCODA. The educators are encouraged to employ a variety of teaching methods in order to motivate and capture the attention of learners. Key methods include: lectures, focus group discussions and debates, role play, and field exchange visits which allow learners to learn from each others' experiences. In addition, informal literacy campaigns are also conducted by means of public lectures in churches, trading centres, and market places, as well as through literacy-based health competitions or peace-building activities.

According to URLCODA, literacy learners participated in a series of book writers’ workshops which resulted in the production of 600 copies of a book entitled: 'Buku 'Bani E'dozu Waraga Laza Onizuri', a pictorial reader for beginners. The book was distributed to 15 learning centres in Arua district to be used as a resource book. The organisers say that the participation of learners' representatives in the production of the book was a motivational learning experience that also gave the communities a strong sense of project ownership, responsibility, and control.

IILP includes strategies to increase the number of volunteer educators. For example, volunteers developed a concept known as Virtual Rural Community Healthcare Volunteers (VRCHV) to handle community health literacy week activities. This approach requires just one person to be based at the centre, while the others can be accessed using a variety of information and communication technologies (ICTs).

Furthermore, URLCODA is working to improve the outreach and effectiveness of IILP through collaboration with governmental and non-governmental organisations in the field of community development. One such organisation is the Uganda Programme for Human and Holistic Development (UPHOLD), which facilitates dialogue and consensus-building between families, communities, teachers, and other stakeholders. Similarly, URLCODA has developed a partnership with the local government, non-governmental organisations, and a missionary hospital in Arua and works with them on the implementation of community health literacy week activities.

Literacy, Education, Health, HIV/AIDS, Environment

According to URLCODA, Uganda is home to 30,900,000 people with English and Swahili as official languages. Between 1995-2004 Uganda's total youth literacy rate was at 77% while the adult rate was at 67%, with women and men constituting 58% and 77% respectively. Nevertheless, the rural areas are home to 80% of Uganda’s population and continue to face high rates of illiteracy, poor health conditions, and poverty. Hence, the Integrated Intergenerational Literacy Project (IILP) was conceived to promote intergenerational literacy skills and socio-economic development. According to recent studies, 30-40% of Uganda's adult population is non-literate; the HIV infection rate stands at 6.2%; 30-38% of children living in rural areas drop out of school; and 35-38% of the population live below the poverty line. The situation is even worse among the war-affected people of northern Uganda, including Arua district. A 2005 report on the socio-economic conditions in the district revealed that just 41% of those aged 6 to 24 who are eligible to attend school actually do so, while 3% are temporarily out of school, 28% have left school altogether, and a further 28% have never attended school. Of the 135,000 children who had dropped out of school at the time of the study, 68% were girls and 32% were boys.

In addition, the study further revealed that the quality of education in Arua district, as in other rural districts, is adversely affected by a severe lack of resources and professional teachers, as well as high student-to-teacher ratios and large class sizes. As a result, most children graduate from the primary school level without having mastered basic literacy and numeracy skills, and many of them fail to proceed to secondary level.

URLCODAis a community-based NGO which was formed in 2002 in response to the needs of the rural people in Arua district. In 2004, URLCODA was legally registered with the National NGO Board of Uganda and is also an affiliate member of the Reading Association of Uganda (RAU). URLCODA’s main objective is to foster literacy skills as a means of empowering rural communities and promoting socio-economic development and transformation.