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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