Peace Corps teaches literacy

Dominican and Grenadian teachers and United States Peace Corps volunteers from the respective countries participated in a three-day workshop to improve literacy in the Caribbean.

The "Primary English Literacy Workshop 2016" was organized by the US Peace Corps-Eastern Caribbean.

The three-day workshop began with an opening ceremony on February 16 at the Garraway Hotel under the theme: "Building Partnerships for Effective Literacy Instructions".

The workshop was funded by United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

"Today marks the launching of the second annual literacy workshop part of the Eastern Caribbean project intended to impact and improve literacy in our primary schools," said the Associate Peace Corps Director Ferne Laurent.

She said that the project is holistic and is intended to touch the lives of the students, teachers and families.

Laurent said that over the three days the volunteers and teachers would have engaged in various sessions on literacy interventions and other best practices in literacy.

"We expect that the volunteers and counterparts will have a good experience and what you learn here today will not only ignite just the grades 1 – 3 for which we are responsible but it will ignite education officers to a movement towards a whole school policy where the balance literacy approach is taught within the school," she said.

Meanwhile, Peace Corps Eastern Caribbean Country Director Mary Kate Lowndes said that the project is a six year cycle and each school will have the volunteers for the upcoming years.

"It is very intensive and our deep desire is that Peace Corps volunteers will be able to work hand in hand with all of you counterpart teachers to help introduce additional activities and ideas," she said. Lowndes noted that reading is the fundamental building block of so many things in the daily lives of people.

"It is just a critical skill that we thought is so basic in having a successful and happy life that we want to do intensive effort on that with you all," she said.