Sunday, August 12, 2018

Literacy – Spanning the US :: Boulder CO :: NM :: Winston-Salem NC :: Ionia Co MI

Literacy: Spanning the U.S.     

Weekly Classes At The Library Prepare Boulderites For Citizenship
Boulder Weekly: 7.19.2018 by Angela K. Evans

On any given Monday, about a dozen people gather around a conference table on the second floor of the Boulder Public Library. There are people from Mexico, Argentina, South Korea, Tibet, Eastern Europe, Nepal and Ethiopia. All have a different story to tell, but all are studying to become U.S. citizens.

For the last 14 years, Anita Stuehler has been teaching free citizenship classes at the library, not a requirement for naturalization, but a helpful tool for people at any stage in the process.

“[The classes] are to help people go in for their interview more confident and more sure of what’s going on,” Stuehler says. “You can have someone come in here with a PhD from Canada and speaks perfect English, or you can have someone who has escaped from Tibet and can’t even write their own name. And it’s usually somewhere in between.”

Since 2012, there has been a 35-percent increase in the number of citizenship applications, according to U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services (USCIS), but the number of individuals naturalized has remained roughly the same, with 700,000-750,000 people becoming citizens each year. Last year, more than 6,300 people were naturalized in Colorado and Wyoming. The year before it was almost 9,000, and in 2015, more than 9,500 people in the two states became citizens.  READ MORE >>

New Mexico Coalition For Literacy Advances Adult Learning
KSFR: 7.20.2018 by Ellen Lockyer

It's a fact: an estimated 46% of adult New Mexicans are functionally illiterate.  That's sad news, but the New Mexico Coalition for Literacy is doing its best to provide programs in every county for those adults who need help with reading skills. KSFR speaks with Coalition executive director Heather Heunermund and outreach coordinator Ellen Gallegos about why so many New Mexicans need literacy help.  LISTEN

YMCA RISE program helps immigrant moms in Winston-Salem
FOX 8: 7.20.2018 by Natalie Wilson   
    
Right now, dozens of women are gaining a new sense of independence.

Many of them are stay-at-home moms who are adjusting to life in America.

The Robinhood Road Family YMCA is teaching them English and how to turn interests into income.

“Most of the funding for adult literacy programs throughout the whole country is based on jobs and helping people get jobs, but because a lot of our women don't have transportation access and they need to take care of their children, we were looking for part-time opportunities so that they could start their own businesses and make money at home,” said Julie Tomberlin, program director of the adult literacy program at the Robinhood Road YMCA.

That’s how RISE - Refugee and Immigrant Society of Entrepreneurs – started. It’s a sub-program of the adult literacy initiative.

It started in 2017 with about 30 women currently participating.  WATCH

Ionia County Literacy Council Promotes Digital Literacy
Daily News: 7.18.2018 by Elisabeth Waldon

An Ionia County woman lost her job as a receptionist and began searching for new work.

However, she soon realized most relevant job postings required the use of Microsoft Word and Excel. Not only was this woman not familiar with these programs, she didn’t even have an email account to use to send in her resume.

Janet Balice recounted this story to the Ionia County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday as an example of one of the many people the Ionia County Literacy Council is trying to help.

The Literacy Council is in the process of connecting the former receptionist to someone who can help her not only create an email account but also learn more about the necessary digital skills needed to find a job.

The Literacy Council has identified digital literacy as a local need in the Ionia County community, along with the ever-present need for basic literacy and math skills. Michigan Works helps with these efforts by making its bank of computers available, and local libraries have also proved invaluable in helping adult students.  READ MORE >>

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