Mathew Miller and Professor Doug McKinlay, Communications

Illiteracy has long been the focus of numerous humanitarian organizations that all have the same basic goal: eliminate illiteracy and provide the basic education necessary to increase the overall quality of life. In other words, if people can read they can learn and through learning they are better equipped to improve their third-world conditions. The initial goal of this project was to provide the means by which people in the third-world can learn to read in a new, cost effective way. We are positioning the project as a revolutionary resource for NGO’s, third world educators and individuals.

The idea was simple, create books and other educational materials that can be accessed online in a number of different languages and then printed on a traditional personal printers. This way organizations and school districts around the world can access a variety of materials they need and print them for each student for approximately 1/100 the cost of buying a traditional text book or shipping a donated text book.

To test the feasibility of this idea, ORCA scholarship funds were used to write, illustrate and test 12 different children’s books. Two books focus on basic numbers and letters, four emphasize third world issues such as hygiene and agriculture, and six are inspirational short stories that help in finding self worth. The writing and illustrating was done by a number of BYU students in a variety of majors and range anywhere from 12-23 pages. After completion of the book’s copy different volunteer members of the humanitarian group Care For Life as well as different elementary school teachers in the valley reviewed them.

It was in this review phase that we realized we would have to alter our initial approach. While reviewing the books, it became evident that while they worked in their ability to act as stand alone stories that successfully taught morals and ideals, they failed to actually teach people how to read. They simply didn’t have enough depth and continuance to do so. We then concluded that in order to maximize the projects effectiveness each book would have make part of an overarching curriculum. We have since begun analyzing different elementary school curriculums used in developed countries that will serve as the foundation for our project. The idea is to take the methods and principles that have been proven to work, and alter them to fit our purpose and method of delivery.

Another problem we encountered was the need for improved conditions in the schools that will possibly be using the curriculum in the future. In many of the most impoverished nations, conditions in their public schools have become so bad that it becomes almost impossible for children to learn. They lack supplies, qualified teachers, food and electricity. We realized that in order to maximize the effectiveness of our project, we would also have to improve the situations that are making learning nearly impossible. To do this, we recently started a non-profit organization called ‘The Cause for Education’. The purpose is to help spread education by providing existing schools the materials they need to successfully teach their children, and build schools in areas that lack them. Our first of many projects began in November of 2008. We have taken on a small school in Zimbabwe. With money raised through our different fund raising events, we intend to pay the teachers salaries, provide basic meals to students, repair the dilapidated buildings and provide electricity and running water.

These realizations lead us to reevaluate the content, scope and delivery of the entire project. What was once seen as a simple recourse for humanitarian groups is now a very proactive two pronged approach. The idea now is to create a place that is conducive to learning by repairing and building subtitle schools and then provide those schools with a successful curriculum in the same revolutionary way. These changes have inevitably altered our initial time line greatly. What was once seen as a 8-12 month process is now looking like a multi year endeavor.

This project has been one of the most fulfilling of my life. The many unexpected changes and realizations have been frustrating at times but have taught me more about creative collaboration than I could have ever imagined. I have learned how much work it takes to make a difference in the world, I have learned how to use people strengths to fill in for my weaknesses and to continually evolve based on our findings. The list could go on and on, but all in all, this experience has been and will continue to be invaluable.

The importance of spreading literacy throughout the third world is astronomical. With millions of people dieing of numerous third world ailments, a basic education and ability to read would drastically improve their ability to deal with, react to and ultimately improve their situation. Helping these people is not only a huge social need, but I believe it to be a huge spiritual need. This project is, in essence, a way to serve our fellow men.