Literacy linked to local needs

In the middle of this settlement on the southern edge of Johannesburg, a place where poverty and sickness often squeeze out hope and plans, a group of women sit in a circle, recording their goals for the year.

They are volunteer health workers, ages 21 to 41, who care for neighbors with AIDS. On colorful construction paper, they write that this year they will get better training, recruit more members, and keep promises to their patients.

They will also improve their education.

These women are part of the Vukuzenzele Reflect Community Organization, one of a growing number of "Reflect" adult education groups in Africa and beyond. Reflect is an education methodology developed in the mid-1990s that connects education with community action in hopes of making learning relevant to adults. It started in El Salvador and Uganda, won the United Nations International Literacy award in 2003, and has now expanded into at least 60 countries.

Many educators hope Reflect will help stem what they see as the growing catastrophe of adult illiteracy. The United Nations estimates that 860 million adults worldwide cannot read or write - a statistic, they say, that has huge implications for future development and democracy in the world's poorest regions.

In South Africa, the government says that almost 8.5 million adults, 18 percent of the population, have had little to no schooling.

The number of South Africans involved in Reflect has grown exponentially over the past year. The Vukuzenzele project had eight participants in 2005. Now there are some 75. And while only eight South African organizations now use Reflect, another 300 are trying to adopt the methodology, says Louise Knight, coordinator of South Africa's Reflect Network.

"Literacy on its own is not very useful for anybody if there's not a reason to use it," Ms. Knight says. "This is a structured approach. That is, a way for people to meet their own objectives."

In the Reflect methodology, a group identifies a community problem - AIDS, sexual violence, poverty, or some other ill - and then decides how to help solve it. The education comes subtly. Maybe the group decides it wants to improve members' writing ability to draft petitions. Or perhaps it aims at better math skills to run the business side of a community garden.

Sipho Mabuya, for instance, says he and his Reflect partners - Nompumelelo Sibisi-Mtilleni and Wilmoth Tshabalala - will soon seek experts to help them learn business skills, such as bookkeeping.

The three Orange Farm residents run a garden outside the tiny Vukuzenzele community center, where the AIDS health workers have assembled for their meeting.

A year ago, this plot was covered with trash and weeds. Now, after using Reflect to learn agricultural skills (they decided together to attend an agriculture training session put on by a nonprofit), the three have thriving spinach, beets, and other vegetables to sell. Once a month, they use Reflect to decide how much money to take home and how much to use for seed, garden tools, or other business expenses.

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