Interweave Solutions Launches Literacy & Business Pilot Program with the LDS Church in Haiti
Provo, Utah (PRWEB) December 22, 2015 -- Interweave Solutions in partnership with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is launching "Three ABCs of Business" pilot groups this month in Port au Prince to test the materials before distributing them country wide.
A story from Interweave's latest trip to Haiti illustrates the power this program can have: "An infectious grin broke out on the sixty year old gray haired man. He had just read some of his first words. He recognized the letter "d" sound with the words det and diri, Haitian words for debt and rice. These words had been put on the board from a lively discussion of business. He was in his first lesson of the ABCs of Business, a program that teaches literacy in the context of becoming more self reliant."
"In the ABCs of Business people learn business while they are learning how to read." explains Dr. Lynn Curtis, Adult literacy expert, Interweave Solution President and author of The ABCs of Business. "Our international experience has taught us that motivation to read is enhanced if adult learners are reading about important aspects of life. Nothing is more important than how to provide for the family."
"Instead of A is for apple, B is for banana, it is A is for assets and B is for budget," adds Dean Curtis, co founder of Interweave. " It is exciting to see people learning to read and applying what they learn immediately to their business."
"We believe these materials are inspired," explained a local LDS Bishop involved in the pilot. "We were looking for a tool to teach our members to read and could find nothing in Haitian Creole. With these materials we can now help our members learn to read, all while improving their sources of income and developing new ones."
The LDS church has launched a worldwide initiative to help its members become more self reliant. One of the challenges in Haiti is that many of their members can't read. Recognizing that feeding the family is a necessity for many of these adult non-readers, the LDS church decided to teach members how to improve their micro-businesses while learning how to read.
The LDS church partnered with Interweave Solutions to develop reader friendly materials for self reliance. Interweave wrote and tested the ABCs of Business in Guyana and translated it into Haitian Creole for this launch.The ABCs of Business pilot will last for 12 weeks. After adaptations from the experience and translation enhancements, it will be launched in LDS churches throughout Haiti.
A discussion on debt and rice was a great way for a sixty year old man to understand the "d" sound in Haitian Creole. He knew about debt and wanted to decrease it and knew about rice and wanted to increase it. The ABCs of Business will help him do both.
Those interested in donating and supporting the cause can visit: http://www.interweavesolutions.org/countries/haiti
Lynn Curtis, Interweave Solutions, http://www.interweavesolutions.org, +1 (435) 553-4773, [email protected]
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