-The group extends congratulations to them
Some 4000 literacy students enrolled at 75 Adult literacy centers in five(5) counties of Liberia as part of Alfalit’s literacy program in Liberia.
Alfalit Liberia Acting Executive Director Rev. Jerome Williams hailed all adults and youth who have humbled themselves to access literacy education in an economically challenged nation like Liberia.
“Today, as we observe this year’s world literacy day, we congratulate and appreciate all the students in our literacy program for taking up the courage despite the odds and their ages, yet believing in themselves that change from the darkness of illiteracy can be replaced with the light of literacy in their lives,” Rev. Williams intimated.
Rev. Williams used the occasion to appreciate Alfalit International in Miami, Florida for the sponsorship to Alfalit Liberia. He said Alfalit Liberia since 2006 has implemented literacy projects in all 15 counties of Liberia largely on funding sourced by Alfalit International, a press release from the education NGO says.
“Our President Joseph Milton has been supportive to the work of Alfalit International in the world including Liberia”, Rev. Williams said; mentioning the existing of Alfalit programs in 17 countries of the world.
Alfalit Liberia joined other stakeholders including United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the Liberian Ministry of Education, United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to celebrate International Literacy Day with cross-section of adult literacy students, school going students practicing the art of phonic reading and storytelling. The International Literacy Day was hosted by the Ministry of Education in Partnership with the Monrovia City Council.
An Alfalit literacy student in Monrovia, Madam Cecelia S. Johnson proud herself as a person the Alfalit literacy Program “promoted from minimum to maximum”. Madam Johnson testified that she fled her first church because she was openly requested to sign for her baptismal certificate; something she did not have the ability to do and brought shame on her.
“I escaped from my pastor and moved to different church”. Coincidentally for her, her new pastor ventured to give her scriptural reading assignment. She managed not to accept until she finished Level I when she moved up to the pastor to lend her his family in order to write a scripture.
“I opened the Bible to John 3:16 and read very clearly. My pastor was so surprise that I proved myself write as a person who knows how to read”.
The Administration of Alfalit Liberia believes, for 13 years now, the Alfalit Literacy program in Liberia would not have been possible if the learners (the beneficiaries); 90 percent of whom are women had not taken up the courage in spite of their ages and life circumstances to gain the courage to enroll into the program to learn how to read and write.
The observance of International Literacy Day by all United Nations countries dated back as far as September 8, 1967 when UNESCO passed a resolution at its General Assembly in 1966 to observe the world over International Literacy Day.