Eleanor Faveris smiles widely when she speaks about her reading group.
“It was pretty good, we all met together and met all these nice ladies, some Japanese and Korean and all different nationalities,” she said at the Hotspot Community Resource Centre in downtown Squamish.
Faveris is part of the Squamish Community Learning Program and participates in the reading group along with six other adult learners who are interested in improving their literacy skills.
She has been with the program for three years, but last week was the first meeting since before the summer, and Faveris was glad to be back with her friends.
Adults who want to improve their reading, writing, communication, math or computer skills are eligible for the free program and can also earn English and math credits toward a high school certificate, according to Pam Gliatis, adult literacy program coordinator for Capilano University’s Squamish campus.
“We read, we write, we do some field trips,” she said while sitting with Faveris after the session last week.
“This group energizes me. It is really great. A lot of the work that we do is writing funding proposals and doing reports and not nearly as much fun.”
It seems like rewarding work as well.
One member of the current reading group, Sachi Rummel, wrote a book about her experiences as a Hiroshima survivor: Hiroshima, Memoirs of a Survivor, which was launched in English this summer and is the first book the group will tackle this year.
The provincial government recently granted approximately $69,000 to Capilano University for non-profit literacy initiatives in the Sea to Sky Corridor.
The grants include $29,600 to the Squamish Community Learning Program – of which Faveris is a member – and $24,411 for the Squamish Faces Family Learning Program for parents of school-aged children.
Both programs have been active for more than a decade.
The funding covers materials, Gliatis’s time, field trips and recruiting and training tutors.
The programs are partnered with Capilano University and are meant to encourage the transition of adult learners from literacy programs to post-secondary studies or employment training.
“They represent that longstanding collaboration with community organizations to look at how do we respond to adults in the community who often because of low literacy levels are not able to fully participate either in employment, education or their children’s education… and in general being engaged in their communities and feeling like they have voice,” said Jean Bennett, Capilano’s dean of the faculty of education.
While the funding for Squamish Community Learning Program has been cut in half from last year, according to Gliatis, Bennett said the funding is now more stable.
“On the upside they have gone to three-year funding,” she said.
In the past, every year the programs had to reapply for grants.
Since 2001, the province has invested about $25 million in community adult literacy programs, according to a government news release.
Squamish’s literacy programs can still accommodate a few more learners, according to Gliatis, and there is always a need for enthusiastic volunteer tutors.
Tutors don’t have to have experience, just a good command of the English language and a willingness to work with individuals from a wide variety of backgrounds, she said.
