Aga Khan University: Community Model Clinics and School Nutrition Programs
American University in Cairo: Campus Literacy Program
Augsburg College: Augsburg Reads
Bahria University: Computer Training and Education
Catholic University of Temuco: Projects with the Araucaní Aprende Foundation
Charles Darwin University: National Accelerated Literacy Program
Georgetown University: DC Reads
Jacobs University: English for Kids
Newcastle University: The Literacy Clinic
Newcastle University: Low Educated Second Language and Literacy Acquisition for Adults (LESSLA)
Newcastle University: Literacy and Creative Writing at the Northern Writer's Centre
Notre Dame of Marbel University: Education Access Programs for Out-of-School Youth/Adults
Southern Oregon University: ACORNS Native American Languages Program
Syracuse University: Partnership for Better Education
The Open University: Digital Education Enhancement Project
The Open University: National Literacy Project
The Open University: OU/BBC Partnership providing public service educational broadcasting
Tufts University: Center for Reading and Language Research
Tufts University: Malden Summer Literacy Enrichment Program, Tufts Literacy Corps, Tufts Jumpstart, and Read by the River
Tulane University: For the Children
University of Dar Es Salaam: TUSEME Theatre Project for Female Empowerment
University of Haifa: Developing Diagnostic Tools in Basic Skills
University of Wales Institute Cardiff: Widening Access Summer School
University of Western Sydney: Learning and Literacy Alliances
University of Winchester: Prison Theatre
Program: Projects with the AraucaníAprende Foundation
Member Institution: Catholic University of Temuco
Students from universities around Temuco support the work of the AraucaníAprende Foundation, a non-profit organization based in the Araucanía region of southern Chile. AraucaníAprende works to enrich teaching instruction using personalized and small-group reading recovery strategy during school hours in up to 50 primary schools, focusing on language and mathematics skills.
University professors have built the work of the foundation into their students' courses. Psychology students visit primary schools weekly to observe and study the quality of classroom instruction. Other students have written theses related to possibilities for strengthening the project. Finally, students are also helping AraucaníAprende develop digital teaching and learning guides to use with classroom curricula as well as information technology. For more information, visit http://www.araucaniaprende.cl . (return to top)
Program: DC Reads
Member Institution: Georgetown University
DC Reads is a tutoring program for low-income children in the first through third grades not reading at grade level. It began in 1997 as a local response to the America Reads Challenge, a literacy initiative established to improve reading proficiency for all elementary students. America Reads Challenge allowed university students who are eligible for financial aid to receive work study funds to tutor children in reading. Volunteers provide on-site, one-hour tutoring sessions twice a week in schools and community-based organizations. The program also provides new books for home libraries and literary resources for families of tutorees. DC Reads currently has approximately 60 Georgetown University students supporting the literacy development of approximately 75 of Washington, DC's struggling readers in the primary grades. Click here for more info.
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Programs: Community Model Clinics and School Nutrition Programs
Member Institution: Aga Khan University
A major program at Aga Khan University involves community mobilization in the form of model clinics in poor communities which provide locations to train medical and nursing students. Around these clinics, AKU hosts a variety of development projects including schools for girls, adult literacy programs, female empowerment projects, leadership training, and microfinance projects. In addition, the clinics host research from different departments.
The Department of Community Health Science in particular has worked to improve literacy levels among girls in rural areas. In a recently completed mega-pilot that included over 4000 primary girls' schools, work done by the department increased enrolment by over 40% through a community-based school lunch program.Over a four-year period, the project targeted 500,000 girls of primary school age (5-12 years old) in 28 districts in the four provinces of the country. It engendered numerous positive outcomes beyond increased school attendance including better health indicators and increased community interaction to promote the needs of the children and the mobilisation of women, who proved to be active and vocal stakeholders. (return to top)
Program: National Literacy Project
Member Institution: The Open University
With 220,000 students worldwide studying with The Open University, the potential volunteering power behind the University's proposed literacy project is immense. Taking action on literacy is part of The Open University's commitment to the Talloires Network and the project's aims are twofold - to encourage individuals to take action on literacy, and to support and develop new initiatives borne out of the shared experience of those individuals.
The University is currently in discussions with the National Literacy Trust, an independent charity dedicated to building a literate nation; Community Service Volunteers, the UK's largest volunteering and training organisation; and Community Links, an innovative inner city charity running community-based projects in east London, to decide how to best mobilise that support. In the meantime, the project is creating an on-line resource for the University community, including:
• access to information about volunteering opportunities
• links to other organisations with an interest in tackling literacy and enhancing educational opportunity
• a discussion forum for sharing experience and ideas
• provision of 'case study' material and updates on progress
• information about the Talloires network and appropriate links.
The project will maintain links with other partners in the Talloires network and extend access to the on-line resource developed, as well as seeking ways for all the partners to link with and contribute to the Education for All program. (return to top)
Program: ACORNS Native American Languages Program
Member Institution: Southern Oregon University
The ACORNS program supports language revitalization efforts of Native American tribes, hence its name: [AC]quisition [O]f [R]estored [N]ative [S]peech. The Acorn is sacred to the tribes of Northern California and Southern Oregon. The name ACORNS is in honor of these tribes who helped spawn this effort. ACORNS is an open source teaching package that can be freely used for non-commercial purposes. ACORN allows language instructors and students to easily prepare and execute files containing language lessons. The software is intuitive and requires minimal technical training. Each file contains a series of lessons that link together through use of mouse clicks. Presently, the program allows you to create two types of lessons.
Picture and Sound Lessons allows you to enter pictures and record a group of audio clips that attach to places on the picture. Students can click on these positions to hear the appropriate recordings in the native language. Multiple Choice Lessons allows you to quickly create lessons similar to those found in the commercial Rosetta Stone product. Each lesson consists of a group of pictures. Each picture can have a group of recorded sounds. Students will hear a recording related to four of the pictures. The task is to click on the correct picture. If correct, the program randomly picks another set of four pictures and one of the sounds associated with that picture. The process repeats as many times as the student wants. Lessons can be linked together in a variety of ways.
The university anticipates adding many other kinds of lessons as the software matures. For example, after importing native dictionaries, they plan to implement various games. They are also actively working on speech recognition and speech pronunciation applications. For more information on original program or to share comments, please contact its creator, Dan Harvey (harveyd[at]sou.edu). The software is freely downloadable under Open Source GNU licensing. The university anticipates that this will be a long term development project involving both undergraduate and graduate students. (return to top)
Program: OU/BBC Partnership providing public service educational broadcasting
Member Institution: The Open University
For over thirty five years The Open University has worked in partnership with the BBC, the UK's public service broadcaster, collaborating on educational Programs that frequently attract audiences of several million. From its earliest days as a means of transmitting the University's course Programs, the partnership has continued to evolve to one of using television and new technologies to inspire a wider general audience to participate in lifelong learning.Producing award-winning Programs that cover subjects as diverse as climate change, human development, astronomy or modern medicine, the partnership aims to provide high quality Programs. The broadcasts deliver learning materials that widen participation in education, and help people make the transition from being passive viewers and listeners to becoming active learners.
Coupled with the broadcast material is Open2.net, the online learning portal from The Open University and the BBC. The website includes interactive educational content created by OU academics, as well as a 'Discussion' section, where viewers can talk online to OU academics and other experts about the subjects and issues raised in the Programs. (return to top)
Program: Campus Literacy Project
Member Institution: American University in Cairo
This ambitious project, launched by the John D. Gerhart Center for Philanthropy and Civic Engagement, provides English and Arabic courses to AUC’s maintenance personnel, security guards, lab assistants and drivers. Student, faculty, staff and alumni gain volunteer experience as teachers and learn the importance of social responsibility, while at the same time helping AUC staff acquire language skills that will last a lifetime.
“Imagine what it’s like for staff that have been here for years and can’t understand the signs or conversations around them,” said Barbara Ibrahim, director of the Gerhart center, at a meeting for volunteers. “They feel like outsiders in their own workplace. We want to give them the skills they need to be able to engage with their environment.”
The program is a rejuvenation of a student-led initiative started by AUC student Yasmina Abou Youssef in May 1997. “I saw that there was a need on campus and I began to match volunteers with workers. When President Gerhart learned about it, he was very encouraging…. It was a very rewarding program, but very informal, and it was clear that it needed institutional backing to last.” In Spring 2006, for example, 51 volunteers — 36 students, five faculty members, six staff members, three alumni and one non-AUCian — signed up to teach two classes every week, each lasting for one hour. The student volunteers taught in pairs, and classes were held throughout each week during regular working hours. A total of 142 workers signed up for the classes, mostly for English lessons. (return to top)
Program: The Literacy Clinic
Member Institution: Newcastle University University
A specialist clinic run by Newcastle University is helping to reverse falling literacy levels. Working closely with six to 16-year-olds and their parents, Literacy Clinic uses a holistic, multi-sensory approach to teaching that builds upon each child's existing strengths and abilities, rather than focusing on their weaknesses. The Literacy Clinic operates from the Paediatric Clinic Rooms, Speech and Language Sciences, in the School of Education, Communication, and Language Sciences at Newcastle University. Since it was set up in January 2004 to provide a service for children with literacy difficulties such as dyslexia, over 50 children have attended a 12-week session. For more details, read here>>
Program: UWS Learning and Literacy Alliances
Member Institution: University of Western Sydney (UWS)
The University of Western Sydney (UWS) serves the fastest growing urban region in Australia. The region is large, young, culturally diverse and with significant areas and groups that suffer socioeconomic disadvantage. Almost 50% of Sydney's population, and 10% of Australia's, live in the "Greater West". The population has lower rates of higher education participation than the rest of Sydney. Over 50% of UWS students are the first in their families to attend university.
Over the years the region has become home for waves of refugees from many countries. Recently, groups of Sudanese refugees have arrived in the area, many of them after years of living in camps in southern Sudan. UWS is involved in a number of programs to help them adjust to cultural, linguistic and environmental settings.
The Sudanese Learning and Literacy Alliance aims to support improved literacy skills and acculturation of Sudanese refugee students and their families. The program is run in partnership with the State Department of Education and Training and the Australian Literacy and Numeracy Foundation (ALNF), a charity dedicated to raising language, literacy and numeracy standards in Australia.
The Alliance has three components:
• A literacy tutorial program in which UWS Master of Teaching students provide support to small groups of refugee students at local high schools. The tutors receive 15 hours of intensive training on cultural orientation and literacy development, and are supervised by a teacher-coordinator paid by ALNF. In additional UWS is employing a Sudanese Community Liaison Officer to establish and sustain effective liaison with the high school students' families.
• Teaching to make a difference: supporting Sudanese refugee students in Western Sydney is a new project that will use interviews with high school teachers whose classes include African refugee students to develop and refine descriptions of pedagogical strategies that have been found to support effective learning among those students.
• Learning through community service - youth transitions for African students is being developed for introduction in the second half of 2007. After intensive training and orientation, education students will provide cultural transition, literacy and job search support to groups of African refugee students who are moving into the post-compulsory high school years and making choices about whether to continue at school, undertake technical education or look for a job. Again, the Community Liaison Officer will sustain liaison with the students' families.
A similar program is the Pacific Islander Learning and Literacy Alliance which provides support for a homework centre attended by high school students from Samoan, Tongan, Fijian and other South Pacific Island migrant families. The families of the students also attend. The project focuses on a range of culturally specific teaching strategies and provides an option for education students to learn how to plan and implement learning experiences for students from those backgrounds.
The Indigenous Students Learning and Literacy Alliance is under development. UWS students will be matched with an Aboriginal Education Assistant (AEA) in a particular high school in a reciprocal mentoring program. AEAs are Aboriginal (indigenous) staff employed in schools to help students, teachers and communities to understand indigenous issues, and with achieving better educational outcomes for Aboriginal students. UWS students will be required to develop and negotiate a program around the AEA's specific needs, and the UWS student's own needs and wishes to learn about Aboriginal cultures. The partners will work together (for one day per week for 15 weeks) on their negotiated program and on locally specific projects designed to enhance the skills and knowledge of each, and to have a tangible outcome that is of benefit to the Indigenous children in the school. (return to top)
Program: Digital Education Enhancement Project (DEEP)
Member Institution: The Open University
The Digital Education Enhancement Project (DEEP) in sub-Saharan Africa is a research and development Program using new information and communications technology (ICT) to improve teacher education and the quality of pupil learning in schools serving disadvantaged communities in different parts of the world. If the second Millennium Development Goal of Universal Primary Education is to be achieved, new models of teacher education need urgently to be explored, experienced and evaluated globally. The countries of Sub-Saharan Africa face particular challenges: over 40 million children of primary school age are without school experience and the numbers are growing. Added to this, the poor quality of much schooling means children leave schools with inadequate knowledge and skills.Originally funded by the U.K. Department for International Development (DFID), DEEP is a partnership between the Open University (United Kingdom) and several project partners:
• University of Fort Hare (South Africa)
• Nelson Mandela Foundation's Unit of Rural Schooling and Development (South Africa) Program, Planning and Monitoring Unit (Egypt)
• The Open University of Tanzania
• Relief International-Schools-Online (Bangladesh)
• The Open University of Sudan
The project partners share a common commitment to improving educational quality through teacher professional development and the use of appropriate professional tools, aligned with the belief that all learners should have an equal opportunity to participate in high quality learning communities (Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948). (return to top)
Program: Developing Diagnostic Tools in Basic Skills
Member Institution: University of Haifa
A unique project in which teams of researchers from the Department of Learning Disabilities at the University of Haifa and from the Child Development Center at Al-Quds University have been working together for the past five years in close cooperation, with the aim of developing class diagnostic tools in Arabic and Hebrew for 1st-11th grade students in four basic skills: reading and writing, mathematics, English as a second language, and mental ability. The diagnosis in all these skills is conducted in the classroom. The project is based on the assumption that reading, writing, mathematics, English as a second language, and mental ability are the essential basic skills for successful functioning in modern society. In many cases, learning disability students are not diagnosed properly, thereby not receiving appropriate opportunity to realize their academic abilities.
As of September 2007, these diagnostic tools will be available to the Ministry of Education in both Jewish and Arabs sector, as well as in the Palestinian Authority. The next stage of the project is designed to train teachers to use these tools. As part of the process, a mobile workshop will be developed, bringing the knowledge into schools. In addition, intervention programs for remediation of learning disabilities will be built. (return to top)
Program: Prison Theatre
Member Institution: University of Winchester
The University of Winchester’s partnership with Her Majesty’s Prison Winchester is aimed at offering a range of educational experiences to students who attend the University and to prisoners as part of Release on Temporary Licence and re-settlement Programs. Arts projects delivered within the prison are educational and prisoners participating achieve accreditation for their work as well as acquiring a range of transferable skills. To date, four plays, with casts of prisoners and undergraduates as actors, understudies and technicians, have been performed to outside audiences. Production work is facilitated by experienced educators and theatre workers. Funding for these projects is raised by one of the Drama team’s Senior Lecturers who also produces the plays and manages the projects. Students also work with prisoners as mentors, helping with aspects of literacy, line-learning, and self-presentation skills.
Many prisoners drop out of school early or leave without qualifications and have a negative view of education. For some prisoners, taking part in a play is the first normative or mainstream activity they have undertaken since leaving school. Taking part offers them the chance to achieve success in an environment which often brutalises them. When prisoners perform in front of an audience, the validation and praise offered to them by audience members is a key contributory factor in terms of raising their self-esteem. (return to top)
Program: Augsburg Reads
Member Institution: Augsburg College
The Augsburg Reads program is a tutoring program for East African immigrant youth in the inner city neighborhoods surrounding Augsburg College in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Originally conceived as a literacy project under the auspices of the America Reads program, Augsburg Reads has now expanded to assist students from 1st-12th grade with any and all homework subjects, including math and science.
Augsburg partners with both Trinity Lutheran Congregration’s Safe Place Homework Help and the Confederation of Somali Community in Minnesota to provide neighborhood youth with 2 hours of homework help, 5 days per week, at three different locations in the Cedar-Riverside Neighborhood. Currently, approximately 30 Augsburg students are working with over 100 youth in the community.
Many of these youth are recent immigrants to the United States, and this program is helping them to overcome language and cultural learning barriers while providing a safe place to finish homework and hone their academic skills. At the same time, this tutoring experience offers our Augsburg students the chance to experience the richness of the cultural heritages in our neighborhood while helping local youth to succeed in their studies. (return to top)
Program: Innovative Education Access Programs for the Out-of-School Youth and Adults
Member Institution: Notre Dame of Marbel University (Philippines)
Through the years Notre Dame of Marbel University (NDMU) has implemented and developed a range of programs that have adequately provided services needed in the deprived, depressed and underserved communities. Particularly addressing the education concerns of the increasing number of the out-of-school youth, the University has implemented innovative programs that increased access to education of the school drop-outs:
1. Alternative Home Education Agenda for Development (AHEAD) Program.Project AHEAD is a viable and cost-effective mode of access to education. In this program, out-of-school youth beneficiaries study at their own time and pace, and their regular physical presence is not required in school. AHEAD Program increases the accessibility and equity of basic education by lowering the cost of educational delivery. The project minimalizes or even makes unnecessary many of the direct and indirect cost connected with school-based system. By shifting from textbooks to self-learning modules, the cost of instructional materials is drastically reduced. Besides opening the doors of education to wider and more diverse social classes, project AHEAD provides greater access to out-of-school youth who are constrained from going back to school due to different reasons including, among others: poverty, chronic illness and being over-aged. The program, which has been supported by Ford Foundation for more than six years now is an attempt to re-engineer an approach to educate the out-of-school youth in the country.
2. Alternative Learning System (ALS) for the Post-Conflict Areas in the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao.The context of the post-conflict areas involves a reality, among others, of dire poverty, malnutrition, deprivation of opportunities and the inadequate social services, such as educational opportunities for the out-of-school youth and adults (OSYA). In the service areas of the University, about 60% to 80% percent of the OSYA are unable to go back to school due to dire poverty, distance, and the peace and order situation. Through the ALS program, advocacy for the welfare of the OSYA was strongly promoted.
The ALS project aims to complement and contribute to the goal of the Philippine Government Department of Education’s Accreditation and Equivalency (A & E) program by enhancing the accessibility of basic education for out-of-school youths in school-less communities in the post-conflict areas of Mindanao. Included in the program component are the development of livelihoods, construction of community learning centers, and the involvement of the local government units in the project implementation, monitoring and in the sustainability of the programs implemented.
With the project initially serving 400 Muslim-Maguindanao out-of-school youth, USAID, through the Education Development Center (Philippine Office) has made commitment to support another 1,000 OSY in the Provinces of Sultan Kudarat, Sarangani and Maguindanao for this School Year 2007-2008. (return to top)
Program: National Accelerated Literacy Program
Member Institution: Charles Darwin University, Australia
Charles Darwin University’s (CDU) School for Social and Policy Research plays an integral role in the implementation of the National Accelerated Literacy Program (NALP). NALP is jointly funded by the Australian Government through the Department of Education Science and Training (DEST) and the Northern Territory Government through the Department of Employment, Education and Training (DEET).
The National Accelerated Literacy Program (NALP) is a nationally funded program designed to improve the literacy standards of students who are currently failing to read at a level deemed appropriate for their age. The Accelerated Literacy (AL) approach provides teachers with a number of steps that make students familiar with the context and purpose of written discourse, and has been successful in remote and Indigenous communities because it targets children with limited literary experience in the home.
CDU’s role is to provide the strategies and resources to support the Department of Employment, Education and Training with the implementation of the program across 100 schools, 700 teachers and 10,000 students by the end of 2008. A comprehensive educational research program has been put in place to define and develop the methodology that will ensure sustainable literacy improvements through effective educational reform and managed change.
The research focus for NALP is on the codification, verification and refinement of the current practice, with a number of additional research projects designed to extend the program beyond its current capacity. These projects can be divided into 5 core areas:
1. Teaching and assessment (writing, oral language and comprehension)
2. Early childhood
3. Other genres (non-narrative texts)
4. Adult literacy
5. Distance education
6. Program evaluation and improvement
For more details go to: http://www.cdu.edu.au/sspr/NALP.html (return to top)
Program: Center for Reading and Language Research
Member Institution: Tufts University
Tufts University’s efforts to promote and enhance literacy combine the work of a major academic center, true service-learning programs, and an annual educational fair.
Under the leadership and direction of Dr. Maryanne Wolf, John DiBiaggio Professor of Citizenship and Public Service, the Center for Reading and Language Research (CRLR) at Tufts is widely recognized for its ground-breaking research leading to advances in dyslexia testing and treatment. An affiliate of Tufts' Eliot Pearson Department of Child Development, a primary goal of CRLR’s work is to help children who are experiencing a lack of success in school. The CRLR provides assessment, consultation and tutoring services for educators, school administrators, students and families. The comprehensive mission of the CRLR includes:
• To conduct high quality research on all aspects of reading development and reading impairment
• To develop and evaluate state-of-the-art intervention for children with developmental reading disorders
• To provide research, teaching, internship, and tutoring opportunities for faculty, undergraduate and graduate students
• To offer a range of teaching and tutoring services to families in the Boston area and Tufts neighboring communities. (return to top)
Program: Low Educated Second Language and Literacy Acquisition for Adults
Member Institution: Newcastle University
LESLLA was established in 2004 as an international forum on the acquisition of proficiency in spoken and written English by adults who are not literate in their first language. As such LESLLA is an acronym for “Low Educated Second Language and Literacy Acquisition by Adults”. Many traditional programmes for teaching English to speakers of other languages assume that the students will have literacy skills in their first language, so that they will be familiar with the basics of spelling, grammar and syntax. When this is not the case -as is increasingly common in the UK, particularly amongst refugees from east African countries and Afghanistan – then literacy must be taught from scratch at the same time as teaching a new language: a tall order for both students and their teachers. Considerable innovation in teaching and learning strategies is called for, and LESLLA exists to share ideas and effective practices in this rapidly-evolving area of literacy and language learning.
LESLLA was founded by a consortium of European and North American researchers, amongst them Dr Martha Young-Scholten, who is based in Newcastle University’s School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics. For more details, read here>>
Program: Malden Summer Literacy Enrichment Program, Tufts Literacy Corps, Tufts Jumpstart, and Read by the River
Member Institution: Tufts University
The Malden Summer Literacy Enrichment Program is a collaboration between the City of Malden and the CRLR. This intensive four-week reading intervention was developed in the spring of 1998 to serve the needs of severely impaired readers and young children. Due to the success of this initiative, a year-round program (Malden After-School Program for Success (MAPS)) was developed in the fall 1998.
The Tufts Literacy Corps (TLC) was established in 1997 through the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Development and the CRLR in response to national studies indicating that the nation’s fourth-graders were reading below grade level. Since then TLC has represented the University's commitment to public service by providing student tutors to work with children in Medford and Somerville schools. TLC student tutoring positions are work-study supported and directed by Dr. Cynthia Krug who, with help of a full time staff, provides training and supervision for this program. There are currently about 90 TLC tutors working in the Somerville/Medford area focusing in the areas of reading, writing and math within 2nd-9th grade levels. TLC Tutors work one-on-one with children and use a variety of strategies to help with reading and writing, among them are the innovative methods designed at the CRLR. Through the combination of public service and educational outreach, the TLC program fosters a sense of civic engagement and enhances the students’ own education through a practical application of their skills. For more information about the Tufts Literacy corps, go to: http://ase.tufts.edu/tlc/The Tufts Jumpstart Program is the Tufts University arm of a national early childhood education program that pairs college students with at-risk preschoolers to help prepare them to succeed when they enter school. Approximately 45 Tufts students contribute 200 total hours each per year through individual and classroom assistance. Before becoming a Tufts Jumpstart Corps member, students complete an intensive pre-service training period. They then join a team of 8-10 college students, serving as a mentor for a child deemed at-risk by his or her teacher. Corps members earn their Federal Work Study award or credit toward graduation and all students are eligible for an additional education award from AmeriCorps.
Finally, an annual educational fair promoting the importance of early childhood literacy, Read by the River is held by Tufts Hillel in partnership with the City of Medford. Dozens of Tufts students visit Medford schools to promote the fair, and they participate in the celebration, showing children how to incorporate reading into their everyday lives. More than 500 Medford school children attend the event and form bonds with the local community and Tufts students. For more information about Read by the River, go to: http://www.readbytheriver.org/ (return to top)
Program: TUSEME Theatre Project for Female Empowerment
Member Institution: University of Dar Es Salaam
TUSEME is a Swahili expression that means, “let us speak out.” At the University of Dar Es Salaam, the TUSEME Project started in 1996 as an outreach program aimed at empowering girls to overcome their inhibitions and voice their concerns in public. It emerged as a response to concerns that girls were not sufficiently involved in discussions of problems affecting them and their proposed remedies. The TUSEME project therefore was founded in order to train girls to express publicly their views in matters that affected their academic and social development and learn to take part in finding solutions to those problems.
The underlying philosophy of the project is rooted in the use of art, specifically theatre art, as a tool for shaping consciousness and galvanizing people into action. The Department of Fine and Performing Arts at USDM has conducted research and discussions about the role of theatre in social development, with particular attention to the use of theatre in traditional African settings. They found overwhelming evidence that theatre was being effectively used to transmit important messages on many occasions in traditional African society. TUSEME capitalized on these concepts and developed its strategy for addressing the problems facing girl students in secondary schools. TUSEME therefore is a theatre-based empowerment process. Read more about the TUSEME Project. (return to top)
Program: Literacy and Creative Writing at the Northern Writers' Centre
Member Institution: Newcastle University 
The Northern Writers’ Centre (NWC)is a dynamic partnership between The School of English at Newcastle University and New Writing North, the regional literature development agency. A project Group within NWC is delivering an ambitious programme of education in creative writing for teachers and schools, which involves careful evaluation and a transformational approach to thinking about writing skills. Members of the group include creative writing staff from the University, Professor W.N.Herbert , Professor Jackie Kay and Dr Laura Fish - all well known authors – and literacy consultants and culture and creativity advisers from Newcastle City Council’s Education Department.
The basic principle at the heart of the project is that the way creative writing is taught to adults in workshops can be adapted for use in Schools, and can have an impact on children’s attainment levels in writing. NWC is developing a course for teachers which will increase teachers’ skills, knowledge and confidence in facilitating the creative use of language amongst pupils across both the primary and secondary curricula and carefully assessing the actual effectiveness of the techniques they have learned in the classroom. The course will address assessment guidelines, without losing those elements of experiment and play which Group members believe are highly attractive to both teachers and pupils. The Group has already run taster sessions at which teachers fed back how much they appreciated ‘the idea of playing with words in teaching and learning’. In particular they noted, through the course, the opportunities for approaching the curriculum in different ways, deepening language skills with children who did not use English at home and supporting greater risk-taking with the gifted and talented. This course is being run in pilot mode in academic year 2008 – 9, and will then be offered generally for teachers throughout the North East England region from the start of academic year 2009 -10. It will also be made available through distance learning, both nationally and internationally, from 2010. Visit the Northern Writers' Centre website>>
Program: Partnership for Better Education
Member Institution: Syracuse University
Coordinated through the School of Education, PBE assists Syracuse City School District students to graduate and successfully pursue higher education by providing new opportunities for quality instruction through a formal working partnership between the District, Syracuse University, Le Moyne College, SUNY Environmental Science and Forestry, Onondaga Community College, SUNY Upstate Medical University, and local and national corporations. PBE fosters innovative approaches to inclusive education for students in urban schools by emphasizing literacy through the arts, business and entrepreneurship, and science and technology. Faculty members and nationally known guest artists devise and employ engaging means of drawing K-12 students into learning, while mentoring SU students in a range of fields and helping them test their knowledge in practical situations. Read more about programs at Syracuse University. (return to top)
Program: Computer Training and Education
Member Institution: Bahria University
Bahria University has designed a program for basic computer training and education for the deprived class in Pakistan who cannot afford to pay tuition fees. This program, at no tuition fee cost, is designed by the students of Bahria as per their requirement for completion of 32 hours community work as part of their degree. The program, known as 'Education For All’ (EFA), will be run for a duration of 6-8 weeks inviting students who are interested in learning basic computer skills and other educational courses.
In Pakistan, a huge percentage of the population cannot afford basic education and therefore cannot match the skill requirements for many jobs -- this leads to both unemployment and poverty. Bahria University took a significant step by showing a willingness to provide university resources such as computer labs, lecture halls and class rooms free of cost to the students of the EFA program, with an aim to address the issue of illiteracy in Pakistan
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Program: English for Kids
Member Institution: Jacobs University
English for Kids is a program by Jacobs University Bremen’s Rotaract Club in which students teach English to elementary school children with migrant background. The project was initiated 2004 by several engaged members of the student community, who organized themselves in the Rotaract Club of Jacobs University (then: International University Bremen). This project makes use of the special campus environment provided by Jacobs University: The strong international character, as well as English as the main communication language, as the lingua franca, between community members from more than 90 nations. Both factors contribute strongly to the children’s learning efforts and progress.
Besides the goal of teaching and developing the English skills of these children, Rotaract club members have a more fundamental aim which they seek to fulfill with the project English for Kids. Realizing that - based on their family background and the surroundings they grow up in - not all children of the elementary school group will enjoy the same opportunities they do, club members wish to pass on some of their privileges by helping these kids develop their language skills.
Recently, the project was expanded. Jacobs students now also teach English to the elementary school children’s mothers. This project has also become very popular in a very short time. This project is financially supported by Jacobs University Bremen and a scholarship of the German Academic Exchange Service. Read more on Jacobs University student activities>>
Program: Widening Access Summer School
Member Institution: University of Wales Institute Cardiff
UWIC offers free summer school for local adults to gain practical skills and learn more about pursuing higher education. One summer UWIC organized information technology courses in Chinese for members of the local Chinese community. (return to top)
Member Institution: Tulane University
For The Children is an in-school literacy program in which volunteers are matched with two students each. By reading one-on-one with students, volunteers raise reading levels and increases academic performance while improving the self-esteem of the children who participate in the program.
For The Children is affiliated with Tulane's Center for Public Service, and Tulane Service Learning students and work-study students have been working with the program for many years. The Tulane Center for Public Service van runs to both schools to service Tulane Service Learning students. Learn more>>
If you have any questions about the Global Project or have a literacy program you would like to have profiled on this page, please contact Elizabeth Babcock.
