Literacy: Spanning the U.S.
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Trident
Literacy Association honors Lowcountry female leaders for International Women's
Month
Post & Courier: 3.07.2018 by Deanna Pan
America
Martinez was 18 when she left Mexico in 2003 on a tourist visa to visit her
family in Tampa, Fla.
She
never went back.
By
then, Martinez said, she was too old to re-enroll in high school. Without
proper documentation, she couldn't work. So she helped her mother clean houses
while she learned English at home by watching episodes of "Friends"
on TV with a notebook in hand to jot down the words she didn't know.
Martinez,
an amateur baker with a knack for making tres leches cakes and flan, put her
own dreams on hold.
But,
since getting her green card in August 2016, Martinez is poised to turn her
favorite hobby into a career. Martinez started taking GED classes at Trident
Literacy Association's adult education centers. She passed
her fifth and final section on the GED test — math, her worst subject — last
month on her first try.
Martinez,
34, now heads to culinary school at Trident Technical College and is one big
step closer to starting her dream bakery business.
"I
know how to bake cakes and decorate them, but I know there's so much more to
learn," she said. "I want to learn about everything."
The
future culinary student and mother of two in Goose Creek will share her success
story Thursday at Trident Literacy Association's Founder's Awards Luncheon
honoring women in the community for International Women's Month.
The
goal of the event, according to Eileen Chepenik, executive director of Trident
Literacy Association, is to draw attention to the role women play in the
education of their families. READ MORE >>
Danbury
Library to offer free ESL Courses with $10,000 American Dream Literacy Grant
Hamlet Hub:
3.08.2018 by Danbury Library
Danbury Library has been selected as one of 20 public libraries
nationwide to receive a $10,000 American Dream Literacy Initiative grant
from the American Library Association (ALA) and Dollar General Literacy Foundation.
With
the funding, Danbury Library will offer free, beginner-level English courses
for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL).
“One
of the most common requests we get asked at the Information Desk is for English
language classes and with 45% of the Danbury residents reporting speaking a
language other than English at home, it is something we are excited to offer
our community,” said Katie Pearson, Library Director.
The
project, Learn English! Free English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL)
Classes at the Library, will consist of three English language courses and will
be held in the Lower Level Meeting Room of the Danbury Library. Each course will run for ten weeks with five
hours of instruction per week; totaling 50 hours of instruction per course. To
provide instructors for these courses, the Library is partnering with Western
Connecticut Regional Adult and Continuing Education (WERACE). WERACE will also assist the Library in
implementing a standard assessment of language proficiency, an initiative that
WERACE is spearheading, so that students can seamlessly continue their language
studies at any Danbury location or organization that is offering courses. READ MORE >>
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Ex-Cons
Open Black History Pop-Up Museum In Long Island City
Patch NY:
3.08.2018 by Danielle Woodward
The
first advice students hear when they walk into Mike Logan's class is to never
give up on their goals.
It
doesn't matter if you have a criminal record, which they do, or a high school
diploma, which they don't. In Logan's eyes, each student has potential to
succeed, and he's going to tap it.
Logan
teaches the pre-GED Young Adult Literacy Program at The Fortune Society,
a nonprofit that helps ex-cons get back on their feet. His "students"
- 18-to-24-year-olds with criminal pasts - are the masterminds behind the new
pop-up African American History museum at Fortune's Long Island City
headquarters.
The
college-level exhibit, which chronicles major - and some widely unknown -
events and figures in Black history, opened on Wednesday at 29-76 Northern
Blvd. It was researched, curated and installed entirely by the 19 women and men
enrolled in Logan's pre-GED class, many of whom cannot read past an eight-grade
level, Colleen Roche, a spokeswoman for the organization, told Patch. READ MORE >>
‘Voiceless’ inmates find healing through prison poetry
program
Kansas City Star: 3.12.2018 by Anne Marie Hunter
For
the past two decades, the Johnson County Library Incarcerated Services and Arts in Prison
Writing programs have opened the world of literacy and writing to incarcerated
juveniles and adults throughout Kansas.
These
programs not only lighten the hopelessness and loss of identity experienced by
many inmates, but they also provide opportunities for them to share their
stories with an audience who might not ever hear their voices another way.
“These
programs make a community connection with people who are traditionally
invisible,” Johnson County Library Incarcerated Services Librarian Melody
Kinnamon said.
In
2003, the Johnson County Library started its program by placing 200 books in a
library at the juvenile detention center.
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Since
that time, the library program has expanded exponentially, serving nearly 9,000
incarcerated individuals — including nearly 7,500 juveniles and more than 1,000
adult offenders at Johnson County detention and residential centers. READ MORE >>
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