Literacy and Skills Development
Land and Environmental Rights Watch Africa is mandated to intervene in the above-cited contextual challenges, through the following programmatic objectives:
About 85% of Uganda's population lives and works in rural areas. The areas are characterized by illiteracy, scarcity of information on basic health care and nutrition, sparsely located schools, lack of both school and public libraries, etc.
In an ideal community, all individuals would have access to educational resources and opportunities that support their personal and professional development. This would include access to reading materials, digital tools, and educational programming.
However, in Rubongi subcounty, many individuals do not have access to these resources. The lack of a community library and limited access to digital tools and educational programming makes it difficult for individuals to develop the knowledge and skills needed to succeed in school and in the workforce. Though there are a number of both government aided and private schools, the area suffers an acute shortage of reading material. The aims of adult educational literacy campaigns, health and agriculture extension activities in rural areas, are not being fully realized partly so because of a lack of reading materials in the rural communities to support these initiatives which would enable rural community members to learn, retain and enhance their literacy skills and productivity. As a result, individuals in the community struggle to achieve their full potential, leading to lower levels of educational achievement, limited economic opportunities, and reduced quality of life.
To address these challenges, in alignment with the strategic objective of providing a community platform for information sharing, the organisation is in the process of establishing a community library. The LERWA Rieko a Meni Community Library is a space for intergenerational learning, skills development, promotion of cultural heritage, social inclusion, and environmental and physical education. The major aim of establishing the library is to promote literacy development and lifelong learning for children, youth and adults through the diverse services and outreach activities that will be implemented in order to address social, environmental and economic challenges within the communities.
The project will endeavour to collect, in a co-ordinated manner, the vast amount of information generated by Government and non-Government Organizations all over the country and to disseminate it through the library. The project would further provide a small continually renewed source of appropriate materials for literacy, numeracy and community development in such areas as; agriculture, nutrition, mother-child health, family planning, appropriate rural technology, national political awareness, etc., to produce all-round, well-informed and knowledgeable citizens. Such well-informed people are likely to be more economically productive.
Furthermore, a better educated Public is more likely to be politically aware, be more alert and confident thus enabling the educated Public to uphold and to promote Human rights and democracy. Such library services would enable the raising for the community's education standards, thereby exposing it to what other people in other parts of the world have done to improve living standards and, generally, would provide it with a basis on which to fight backwardness, poverty ignorance and disease. There are many school drop-outs within the area who would be able to use the library service to further their education through self-education. Furthermore, Rubongi subcounty being a peri-urban area, there is limited land for most of the community members to engage in gainful agriculture leading to food insecurity, poverty due to the high unemployment rates, crime and violence, etc. The community library will provide an opportunity for community members to access information, learn skills and knowledge and receive skills that will empower them to engage in gainful income generating activities.
A fundraising drive to support the establishment of the community library is ongoing and we welcome both monetary and in-kind support. Contact us through email: info@lerwa.org for further details on how you can support this cause.