Literacy: The African Challenge

Learning English is the task of many of the African people. Those who went to school learned some, but so many of the older (35+) did not have the opportunity for school. Just recently the government here declared school would be free to the children. Previously many children were unable to pay for school. If there was any money for school, the boys were sent. Girls stayed home and learned homemaking skills and might have sold goods on the streets. The women in particular do not know how to read. There ability to read English and to attend school is their ticket out of poverty. It is also the key to growing strong faithful members in the church. A person who cannot read their scriptures has a difficult time learning how the Lord works in peoples lives and what the prophets have told their people of Christ.

Ghanians are religious at heart. They want to please and desire baptism. The problem is they would easily be baptised without knowing anything about the gospel. At one time that is what we did. But the missions recognized the need to teach the people about Christ, about faith, about repentence, baptism, the gift of the Holy Ghost and Enduring to the end. The people need to be taught the plan of salvation to understand the committment they make to Christ when they are baptized.

A similar challenge arises when trying to nourish their faith. Dialects in Africa run in the hundreds, maybe thousands. It is too costly to try to translate the scriptures in all the dialects here and so to grow in faith, light and truth, the people need to be able to read and understand English.

The Literacy program was born out of these needs. It began about 6 months ago. It is taught on Sundays, during Sunday School and Relief Society, and generally it is taught 2 other days of the week. Those competent with the English language in the wards teach the others. The pictures you see were taken during a training session for the facilitators (teachers) in this stake. There were about 12 present. I came to observe. It was an interesting day. I learned a lot about teaching English as a second language.