News Briefs & Upcoming Events

Annual “Walk for Literacy” Raises Funds for Local New Brunswick Daycare and South African Kindergarten

The Global Literacy Project partnered once more with G.O.Y.A, a Rutgers student organization for one of the most successful literacy walks to date! On October 9, 2010, the fall sun gleamed in a perfect sky for the over 15 participating groups who turned out to walk the 5K route through New Brunswick with self-painted banners representing their organizations. Music, food, t-shirts and smiles created an atmosphere of friendship—walking towards a common goal—an all empowering body of individuals committed to local youth and the advocacy of literacy. There was an unmistakable hum of cooperation and energy present in the air of New Brunswick that day!

The walk began in front of Douglass Campus Center and ended at the steps of Brower Commons on College Avenue. Over one hundred participants were treated to a post-walk celebration party. The walk generated greatly needed funds to buy computers for the P.R.A.B, a local New Brunswick daycare and to support global education initiatives.  A portion of the funds raised will also help complete the renovation of a  kindergarten classroom in South Africa during GLP’s next Global Learning Expedition slated for January 2-14, 2011. It was a proud day for all those involved. The “Walk for Literacy” planning committee is already planning to expand the scope of the walk in 2011 based on the positive feedback of the last two years. GOYA and GLP extend their sincerest “thank yous” to everyone who supported this year’s event–together we are creating and fostering a culture of empowerment and education by providing literacy reading programs, supplies and awareness. Join us next year…ask us HOW!?

Anniversary Dinner Attendees Reflect on Transformative Legacy of GLP

The Global Literacy Project, Inc., a nonprofit organization focused on literacy and gender equality in education, is celebrating its 10th anniversary. To celebrate this milestone, volunteers, friends and supporters, joined the organization’s Board at an anniversary dinner on September 25th at the Pines Manor in Edison, New Jersey. Founded in 1999/2000, the Global Literacy Project is the unlikely success story of a group of friends concerned about the dearth of educational resources that students and adult learners face worldwide.

Motivated to help, the group launched a book drive for one school, but that one-time act of kindness rapidly transformed into the inspiration for a global education movement. “It’s a momentous occasion for us when you consider that just ten years ago we began our work with a simple desire to upgrade a couple of school libraries used by children in Africa and the Caribbean,” said GLP president, Olubayi Olubayi. MORE>>

Global Literacy Project Receives “Check Into Literacy” Grant From Verizon

Donnett Barnett Verley (Verizon), Olubayi Olubayi, Denniston Bonadie and Doug Schoenberger (Verizon)

Global Literacy Project’s New Jersey “Take Reading Home” initiative received a substantial funding boost this year with the receipt of a $3,000 Verizon “Check Into Literacy” Grant. Verizon awarded 51 grants in 2010.

This funding will completely outfit two classrooms of twenty students each in New Brunswick where GLP volunteers are conducting a 20 week leveled reading program over two semesters.  The grant, matched by donations from long time GLP supporter, 10th grade student Lily Steele, will provide for fifteen basic phonics books and five sets of early reader board books for every student as well as computers and software that provide interactive follow-up to each book.

The typical student in the classrooms GLP serves in New Brunswick comes from a home with few, if any, children’s books. Some of the parents have limited literacy or for whom English is a second language, so they have not read to the children on a regular basis, and might not be comfortable reading to them now.

The most significant feature of the Take Reading Home initiative is that the children will bring home books that they can read to their families. Because the children will be taking home books that they have learned to read with the assistance of the GLP volunteers, when they take the books home they can read independently, thus the parent is not required to give reading instruction.  Instead, parents can listen to the child read, providing encouragement and additional skills practice, while fostering a love of books in their children.

Thanks to the generosity of Verizon customers in New Jersey who participated in the company’s Check Into Literacy program, 51 nonprofit organizations throughout the state received $250,000 in grants to support literacy programs.  Verizon presented checks for the grants to the nonprofits at a ceremony on Tuesday (Sept. 14) in Livingston.

“Education is a major focus of Verizon’s philanthropic efforts, and these grants will give thousands of New Jerseyans the building blocks they need to learn and become more productive members of our society,” said Dennis M. Bone, president of Verizon New Jersey.

The program allows Verizon landline telephone customers to support literacy by checking a box on their monthly phone bills to make a $1 tax-deductible donation to promote literacy.  Verizon then distributes these donations to local literacy organizations that serve the individual states in which the customers live.

GLP hopes to eventually install the same set of literacy support materials in all eighteen of the kindergarten classrooms that are part of the “Take Reading Home” program.

Backpacks & Books Leave Big Smiles with New Brunswick, NJ Students for International Literacy Day!

PRAB Daycare student with her new backpack

September 8th marked International Literacy Day as well the start of the new school year for students in GLP’s hometown of New Brunswick, New Jersey. As has become a happy routine over the past five years, GLP members visited the PRAB where they gave away over fifty backpacks filled with literacy supplies for students in the Puerto Rican Action Board’s Daycare program. GLP also provided a mix of early readers/bilingual books for over 260 students in the kindergarten classes.

New back packs filled with literacy supplies, bobbing on the backs of children throughout the nation is an image that we form in our minds when marking the beginning of the school year. There is a basic assumption that all of our nation’s children fit into this mold of Americana as summer fades and schools open their doors. However, communities served by the Puerto Rican Action Board daycare in New Brunswick, many of them with adults with skills for the now hard to find construction and agricultural sectors, have been facing economic challenges due to the painful ongoing economic contraction. As such, it becomes a challenge for both the school and parents to fully provide  the expected back to school kit of crayons, markers, pencils, glue and a notebook,. This obviously creates distress on all sides, from parents, teachers to the children themselves.

This year, GLP members, Lissette Hererra and Summiya Abdul-Quddus were greeted with smiles and eyes that glimmered with excitement as they brought in backpacks with themes ranging from animal faces, insects and flowers. The teachers at the PRAB personalized each bag with the names of the students–many of who, overcome with anticipation, admired their new treasure with giggles and curious fingers!

The picturesque image of children happily working with basic school supplies is one that we should embrace all children around the world. It is an idea that the United Nations Millennium Goals have also embraced. Join GLP in making this image a reality, start your own community initiative, or ask us how you can help in our efforts, locally and globally!

Summiya Abdul-Quddus and Lissette Herrera give out backpacks at the PRAB.

Brooklyn Middle School 131 Supports “Books for Brainfills, NOT Landfills” by Recycling Texts

A BIG Thank You to Middle School 131 in Brooklyn, New York. Early this year, the school donated over five thousand science, math, English and general reading books to the Global Literacy Project. Ms. Walsh, a teacher at the school coordinated the donation. Volunteers Kuixi and Xian were on hand to help move boxes of books into the Global Literacy van. Kudos to Ms. Walsh, volunteers Kuixi and Xian and to the administrators at the Brooklyn Middle School.

Ethan Briere Believes in Relationships that Lead to Transformative Action

This past April, on the eve of his Bar Mitzvah, Ethan Briere contemplated the fact that Judaism focuses on relationships. However, it also focuses on the importance of actions over the mere mouthing of statements. As such, for the significant transition marked by his turning thirteen, Ethan initiated a wide ranging community book drive and fundraiser, drawing his entire community near and far into a new relationship with the idea of enabling change for South African students in GLP’s “Shack to Scholarship” initiative. This culminated  in June with a collection of several hundred books–enough to supply a half dozen classrooms–along with enough funds to ship the packed pallets out to South Africa.

Today, several hundred students in our Randfontein locations are transforming lives through the new international relationship enabled by the important action that Ethan took. Ethan, toda raba.

Shannon McNamara looks to “SHARE” educational success with African girls

Shannon (second from left) with GLP's Emeka Akaezuwa

It is not always easy to share. Not so with Shannon Hill McNamara, 17. Shannon, a resident of New Jersey and a 2010 Governor Jefferson’s award winner, founded Shannon’s After-school Reading Exchange (SHARE). SHARE, www.shareinafrica.org, is a New Jersey-based nonprofit organization that seeks to empower African girls through education.

Shannon’s passion about reading and her belief in gender equality continues to drive her to help girls her age in Africa. Since 2008 when she founded SHARE, Shannon and a cadre of volunteers have spent months collecting, sorting, labeling and boxing thousands of books and school supplies for African girls, primarily in Tanzania.

Expanding SHARE’s coverage in June of 2010, the Global Literacy Project received over fourteen thousand books from the organization. GLP continued to extend Shannon’s vision by donating the books to girls from the townships around our program sites.

Student at Carroll Shaw Farm with books from SHARE donation

GLP looks forward to partnering with SHARE in the future. We were also delighted to learn that Shannon, along with two other recipients from China and South Korea, were honored by the United Nations for “significant contributions to humanitarian goals” at the Youth Achievement Assembly on August 6, 2010 in New York City.

Volunteers Receive N.J. State Governor’s Jefferson Awards

Anne DeLaney, Olubayi Olubayi, NJ Lt. Governor Kim Guadagno, Chloe Carver, and Douglass Schoenberger-Verizon NJ

On April 28 the Global Literacy Project celebrated the recognition of volunteers Emma Carver and her sister Chloe Carver by the N.J. State Governor’s Jefferson Awards for Volunteerism at NJ PAC in Newark.

The program featured Lt. Governor Kim Guadagno who joined members of the Governor’s Advisory Council on Volunteerism, staff of the Governor’s Office of Volunteerism, the Star Ledger and the Community Foundation of New Jersey at the first NJ Governor’s Jefferson Awards.

Out of the 1,044 applications received, 19 individuals and 3 groups were honored for their outstanding volunteer work throughout the state of NJ on .

Through their ongoing work with the Global Literacy Project, the sisters have provided books, built classrooms, remodeled libraries, and created literacy support programs for sites Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean. As a result of their particular efforts in South Africa, Emma and Chloe received the Jefferson Award for Volunteerism in the category of Education, Arts & History—recognizing volunteers who “provide classroom and/or after-school programs, enrichment opportunities, tutoring, or other academic support that would enhance the student’s ability to succeed.”

Previously, Linda Bowden, President of PNC Northern New Jersey (a corporate sponsor of the awards), has noted that  ”The New Jersey State Governor’s Jefferson Awards honor ordinary people who, through volunteer service, do extraordinary things for other people, their community, their nation, or the environment.”

Sam Beard (co-founder of the Jefferson Awards), Honoree Chloe Carver, Honoree Emma Carver, and Nominator Anne DeLaney

Each year the awards are presented nationally and locally to individuals who do extraordinary things without expectation of recognition or reward.

Read article here: http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/04/nj_volunteers_honored_with_nj.html

Jenni Struthers Connects Her North Carolina Community to South Africa

Jenni working at the GLP warehouse

Students at two primary schools in Gauteng Province, South Africa were delighted to receive books in 2009 that were donated by a then new GLP supporter, Jenni Struthers. Jenni and several friends and classmates (all living in North Carolina) began collecting books in response to a request from Christina Vanech and Emma Carver, acquaintances of Jenni, who spent a semester in South Africa in the fall of 2009.

This year, Jenni doubly surprised the South African students when she conducted another community book drive, this time making a special attempt to collect several copies of the same books to enhance their use in the South African classrooms. She even came all the way from North Carolina to the Global Literacy Project’s warehouse in Hillside, New Jersey to sort the books and get them ready for shipment to South Africa.

During the summer 2010 Global Learning Expedition to South Africa, the GLP volunteers distributed Jenni’s books  into classroom libraries at Zuurbekom Intermediate School and at Thabisile Primary School.

Randfontein Primary School students with books sent by Jenni Struthers

A number of students also received several of the books as prizes for high academic performance during the school year. Many of the South African students mentioned that Jenni was really a special person as even after her friends had returned to the USA, she still thought of them.

At GLP we’re not surprised, especially after seeing the way Jenni focused on working at the warehouse preparing the shipment. Jenni fulfills our definition of “Global Citizen.”

We all say “Thank You” Jenni!

World Story Telling Day at Bragg School

Global Literacy at World Story Telling Day at The Bragg School

The Global Literacy Project sponsored a World Story Telling Day at The Bragg School in Chester, NJ in March with author Marcus Reeves. The premise of World Story Telling Day is that as many people as possible tell and listen to stories in as many languages and at as many places as possible, during the same day and night. Participants tell each other about their events in order to share stories and inspiration, to learn from each other and create international contacts.

Storytelling has been a part of every culture around the world from the start of every community from the most ancient of times. This year March 20th was World Storytelling Day and March 21st was World Poetry Day. Reeves talked about what inspired human communities to tell stories. He noted that Man’s first stories were narrative poems and that in fact poetry is the oldest of all literature.  This nexus between storytelling and poetry continues down to the present day and is reflected in modern variations such as rap and hip-hop music.

Finally, after enthralling the students with several examples from his own and other authors’ writings, Reeves noted that the students in the audience were the potential tellers of tomorrow’s stories. He noted that communities will lose something precious if we don’t have tellers.