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| Recruitment poster designed by Health Initative for Men (HIM). |
Literacy Lives, a 6-month pilot certificate program run by Community Education Programs at SFU’s Harbour Centre, aims to provide a safe and supportive environment where learners can acquire the skills to create, set into motion, and evaluate their own community capacity building projects. At the same time, the program seeks to foster an increased awareness about HIV and the health determinants or conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age. The program also seeks to support learners in developing and expanding their literacy skills. Funded by the Government of Canada’s Office of Literacy and Essential Skills, the program currently enrolls over 30 learners who have been attending classes since September 12th. Literacy Lives is a free program and learners are provided with an SFU student card, which includes access to the library and computer centre, bus pass, food and coffee, resources for child care, and a bi-weekly honorarium for attendance.
Much of the success of Literacy Lives is dependent on the involvement of its collaborators. Each of these organizations-- Health Initiative for Men (HIM), PHS Community Services, Positive Women’s Network (PWN), Vancouver Native Health Society (VNHS), Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH), Youth Community Outreach AIDS Society (YouthCo), and Dr. Peter Foundation--work with individuals who are at the highest risk of HIV infection, some of whom live in the Downtown Eastside. Learner recruitment and interviews were conducted this past summer by a chosen staff member from each of the collaborating organizations. The additional hours worked by these staff members in their expanded role as Community Coordinators with Literacy Lives is paid for through the program’s grant money. Community Coordinators, acting as a liaison between the learners and the program, meet together regularly as a team and attend classes in rotation with the learners. Each coordinator also oversees the Learning Centres set up at their own organization, complete with computers and printers, provided by Literacy Lives for the use of learners.
As in most cohorts, the learners enrolled in this program represent a broad spectrum of backgrounds, experiences, and learning styles. In response to such richness and diversity, the program’s coordinators and instructors have made appropriate changes to its delivery and structure. As William Booth, Community Liaison Manager of the program, reflected: “You just can’t anticipate some things until you get all the people in class.” Not surprisingly, one major commonality across the learners is their expressed motivation to become more active and involved in the community.
The program’s curriculum, informed by community consultations with individuals and organizations in the Downtown Eastside, as well as the Carnegie Action Plan (CAP) and reports produced by the DTES Literacy Roundtable, requires learners to attend six hours of classes at SFU each week. Half of this time is spent with the large group attending classes focused on HIV awareness and its social determinants. The other three hours are spent working in smaller groups to develop the skills needed for their community capacity building projects, including community mapping. As the process unfolds, project teams will be asked to define for themselves what exactly ‘community’ means to them.
Initial feedback on the impact of the program has been positive, and it seems that learners are already beginning to develop a new sense of value of who they are in the community. One woman, upon receiving her student card at the start of term, stated: “This is the best day of my life!” Another man, wanting to share his accomplishments with his mother, scanned his student card to show her. Yet another learner, who has already been participating in various community capacity building projects, received a standing ovation after sharing the news of her enrolment from one of the community organizations she is involved with.
The program’s curriculum, informed by community consultations with individuals and organizations in the Downtown Eastside, as well as the Carnegie Action Plan (CAP) and reports produced by the DTES Literacy Roundtable, requires learners to attend six hours of classes at SFU each week. Half of this time is spent with the large group attending classes focused on HIV awareness and its social determinants. The other three hours are spent working in smaller groups to develop the skills needed for their community capacity building projects, including community mapping. As the process unfolds, project teams will be asked to define for themselves what exactly ‘community’ means to them.
Initial feedback on the impact of the program has been positive, and it seems that learners are already beginning to develop a new sense of value of who they are in the community. One woman, upon receiving her student card at the start of term, stated: “This is the best day of my life!” Another man, wanting to share his accomplishments with his mother, scanned his student card to show her. Yet another learner, who has already been participating in various community capacity building projects, received a standing ovation after sharing the news of her enrolment from one of the community organizations she is involved with.
With creating opportunities for learners as one of the main objectives of Literacy Lives, the challenge facing program staff is to create value around the Certificate in Community Capacity Building. “We are working with diverse organizations across the community to inform them of the significance of this certificate, and the effort required by leaners to gain it, so that their future opportunities will expand”, explained William Booth.
Learners in program will begin implementing their community capacity building projects later this fall; their evaluation of the success of the projects will begin mid-February. Graduation for Literacy Lives’ first cohort will be held at the end of March 2012.
