Making information accessible: an essential precondition for effective refugee protection?

This is an article that appeared on the Information Literacy blog. We published this article in December of 2014. Since then, 25000 Syrian refugees are being admitted to Canada, including a few to Charlie Lake and Fort Nelson. Because of this, it seemed appropriate to bring this post back to the top of the blog.

CILIP asked Maurice Wren, Chief Executive at The Refugee Council, to blog about the importance of information literacy to refugees, as it is Human Rights Day today (10 December). He says “Denying refugees the opportunity to transcend their ‘victim’ status, to be their own best advocates, and to rebuild active and engaged lives, is to limit our humanitarian response to their plight to meeting only their most basic physical needs. We must humanise the way we provide refugee protection and one vital way of doing that is to give refugees access to the tools that will enable them to live a full life of the mind.”
Although it may seem churlish, he does only talk about access to online information; I’m not sure that he is talking about information literacy in the fuller sense (e.g. using all kinds of information sources effectively, including people sources; being able to evaluate and create information collaboratively: this are also vital aspects in crisis situations and for empowerment).
There is an interesting link to the “Technology” issue of Forced Migration Review (2011)http://www.fmreview.org/technology which has articles about the use and impact of technology, including the impact on access to information.
Wren, M. (2014, 10 December) Making information accessible: an essential precondition for effective refugee protection? http://www.cilip.org.uk/cilip/blog/making-information-accessible-essential-precondition-effective-refugee-protection
Photo by Sheila Webber: fallen leaves, November 2014

A View from our Classroom!

A quick snap-shot from our classroom! This is where we work best, and we’ve still got lots of space for newcomers too!

 

Classroom_1

 

Literacy is Life

A video regarding literacy and community:

LITERACY BUILDS COMMUNITIES

Decoda Literacy Solutions shared this series of videos demonstrating  literacy as a strategy for building stronger communities.

Literacy is Life

Check out this awesome video by Decoda Literacy

 

Social Justice Math

Check out the interesting video below about connecting math lessons to social justice issues. Additional resources can be found here.

Family Math Fun

Family-Math-Fun

A great review of this workbook here from Decoda. Try some of the activities by accessing the online pdf or borrowing a copy from the Decoda library!

Family Literacy feature – learn to code!

Check out this neat video from Decoda’s article on learning coding for all ages in the family.

New literacy program comes to Stokes

Dolly Parton's Imagination Library is being offered to Stokes County residents through the Stokes Partnership for Children.

Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library is being offered to Stokes County residents through the Stokes Partnership for Children.

Here’s an innovative literacy program aimed at pre-schoolers. In our previous post about pre-school literacy, pediatricians worked with a literacy society to bring books to children. This story is about a literacy program organized by country music star Dolly Parton. One of the most interesting things about this is that Dolly isn’t just shoveling money at the programs. Instead, they seem to be coming up with novel ways of organizing their own fund-raising. What new ways of raising funds could we come up with?

KING — The Stokes Partnership for Children is launching a new program beginning this month. The Dolly Parton Imagination Library will provide a free book every month to all children younger than the age of 6. Once registered, books are mailed directly to the child’s home each month.

The Stokes Partnership for Children, a nonprofit organization based in King, provides programs and services for families and children in Stokes County. One of the partnership’s long-term goals is to improve school readiness leading to improved literacy. Cindy Tuttle, executive director of Stokes Partnership for Children, said, “Forming early literacy skills is vital.”

Dolly Parton started her Imagination Library for children in Tennessee in 1995, and expanded the program to other communities in 2000. Individuals must have a local sponsoring agency in order to sign up for the program. According to Tuttle, the Stokes Partnership for Children has spent six years raising funds to bring this program to Stokes County.

(Read full story by Diane Blakemore)

Teaching literacy a complex mix of methods

Teaching reading is mired in theory, with too little focus on practical skills. Photo: Michael Clayton-Jones

Teaching reading is mired in theory, with too little focus on practical skills. Photo: Michael Clayton-Jones

A recent report by the NSW Board of Studies, Teaching and Educational Studies suggests there are significant concerns that teachers are not fully equipped to teach reading.

The report is a result of an audit of teacher education courses with a view to finding out how and in what manner teachers are trained in university courses to teach reading to young children.

Of course, the teaching of reading is central to the role of a primary classroom teacher and for perhaps as long as a century the best way to teach reading has been the subject of research, investigation and analysis.

When a teacher introduces a learner to the intricacies of decoding text, they start with the fundamental principle, the alphabet, the symbols that unlock the puzzle of reading. This is followed by teaching the relationship between sound and symbol.

This is known in education as “teaching grapho-phonic relationships”.

(Read full article in Brisbane Times)

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