12 and 13 October 2009

The theme of this year’s LitCam Conference was “Literacy and Media”, moderated for the fourth time by Neil McClelland, former director of the National Literacy Trust. Four outstanding and multifaceted projects were introduced at this year’s conference. Common to all projects was the use of diverse media to impart basic education.

Dr. Brij Kothari, founder and manager of Planet Read started off the conference with his project “Reading for a Billion”. Already in 1996, his organisation was very successful with their idea of subtitling songs from Bollywood films in the same language (so viewers could sing along). They were able to reach a wide audience with these subtitled films, especially in Indian villages. By unconsciously reading the film texts, their ability to read, which was sometimes only rudimentary, improved.

In Afghanistan, basic education is imparted though the radio. Dr. Said Musa-Samimy presented the Deutsche Welle project “Learning by Ear”, which has already been successfully implemented in Africa and now been started in Afghanistan. Local youths act in the radio plays, which cover social education topics such as equal rights. Particularly adolescents are targeted with these radio plays. Incidentally, radio is the most widespread medium in Afghanistan.

The Nigerian project “Ready or not”, presented by Sandra Mbanefo Obiago, founder and Executive Director of the Organisation Communication for Change , also uses the radio as its medium of choice. The project was conceived and produced in direct collaboration with the adolescents concerned. Diverse radio plays deal with themes that are very relevant for these youths, such as AIDS. In southern Nigeria, the programmes are run in English and in the north they are produced in the Hausa language. Apart from these radio plays, Sandra Obiago and her organisation also produce films and documentaries which deal with the topic of social responsibility and are specially geared towards young people.

The project presented for the European region was by Ireland’s National Adult Literacy Agency (NALA): “Distance Learning – Bridging a Gap for Basic Literacy Learners” [link]. Tom O’Mara demonstrated how the crossmedia use of TV, internet and print is able to help many functionally illiterate people. About 10% of Ireland’s working class have no formal qualifications. This target group can be reached directly, particularly through television. The basis is a 12-part reality documentary, which was shown on the Irish public TV channel RTE.

The conference was rounded off by the podium discussion “Nollywood, Bollywood, Hollywood and Literacy” which was also moderated by Neil McClelland. The discussion revolved around the use of popular media to promote basic education. The participants were: Sandra Obiago from Nigeria for Nollywood, Brih Kothari from India for Bollywood, producer David Gerson from Nick Wechsler Production for Hollywood and Namir Hanna, manager of Rearden Educational for the Arabic World. It was quite apparent that (digital) media play an important role in a globalised and digitalised world, particularly in the area of literacy. All participants of the discussion agreed that media have a great influence on social behaviour and therefore also harbour a huge potential for promoting education, as shown, for example by Jamie Oliver in England.

 

The following day, workshops were held to cover individual topics in more detail. The workshops that dealt with the “Google Literacy Project” and “Avallain’s Basic Skills e-learning system” showed the important role of e-learning in imparting basic education.

The two project workshops of the “Book Box animated series” by Brij Kothari, Planet Read, India and the documentary films of Sandra Obiago from Nigeria demonstrated that basic education can be greatly supported through mass media, such as films and audio plays. Gerry Shiel of FELA provided a statistical overview in his workshop on the level of education in reading and writing in Europe.

This year’s LitCam Conference has shown that media plays an important role in basic education all over the world, be it by imparting knowledge through e-learning/distance learning or, unconsciously, through mass media. One should not forget that media can also have a positive influence on people’s receptiveness for (basic) education.

 

Links to more reviews of the LitCam Conference:

• http://avallain.blogspot.com
• http://www.alphabund.de/Vierte_internationale_LitCam_C.214.0.html
• http://www.lezenenschrijven.nl/files/Engels/press%20release%20litcam%202009.pdf

The next LitCam Conference in Frankfurt will be held in October 2010, under the motto “Literacy and Human Rights”.

 

• Organisationen
• Referenten
• Project Presentations and Summary of Workshops