Donata Obara
Chief Literacy Officer,
ActionAid
ActionAid works with communities
where literacy – the
numbers of people who can read and write – is between
20% and 30%. In Kariobangi, literacy is at this level, while
Kenya’s overall literacy is 50%. Men tend to be better
educated than women, as girls often drop out of school
because o the cost of fees, or because they have to look
after younger
children.
Our education programme is relevant to the lives of people
in Kariobangi. To do this we fit lessons into other work
on health, sanitation, income generation and savings schemes.
Literacy is important, as people
need to be able to write their name to set up a savings
scheme. It stops them being
cheated at the market. We’ve also found if a member
of savings groups cannot read or write, they are often ‘bulldozed’ into
wrong decisions by better educated members.
We hope that over a period of ten years the numbers of
people who can read and write in Kariobangi will increase
from 20%
to over 70%.
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