United Way Ghana's literacy project seeks to promote childhood literacy and inculcate reading habits in primary school children in underserved schools located in slum communities.
According to the USAID Early Grade Reading Assessment, Ghana is falling dramatically behind other countries in literacy skills. 89 in 100 Ghanaian children cannot read appreciably below a 3rd-grade level. Unbelievably, 98% of children in primary 1 to 3 in Ghana cannot read or write at the most basic level. Functional literacy is one of Ghana's biggest challenges. Low literacy skills are directly linked to greater inequality, higher unemployment, less earned income, and poor health.
According to the Center for Universal Education of Brookings, 21.1% children in Ghana are not learning reading and an overall 32.1% children in Ghana are not learning at all. The issue of poverty and neglected children amongst others contribute to the rate of illiteracy of primary school children in Zongo communities in Ayawaso. This project seeks to improve the literacy level of these primary school children to give them a better chance of attaining success.
The long term goal of the literacy project is to enable children from underserved communities to attain success and support their communities' development. The overarching goal of this project is to change community conditions by empowering individuals to reach their full potential. The children enrolled on this literacy project will be equipped with tools to enable them read, write, communicate in English fluently and attain academic success, employable and entrepreneurial skills.
This project has provided additional documentation in a PDF file (projdoc.pdf).
