Willow Bunch SK S0H 4K0

Our aims are simple, yet extensive. Firstly we aim to increase literacy. Although more than 99% of Canadians are classed as literate, functional (employment relevant) illiteracy covers nearly 50% of all Canadian adults. (People who control the purse-strings for education unwisely think by keeping some people illiterate, especially minorities, those at the top of the economic scale are better off. It isn't so). A stat from the CD Howe Institute states that in Canada a 1% increase of literacy would increase the economic growth by $18 billion a year. That equates to $545/per person of economic productivity. Transfer that statistic to those in the bottom billion (see the PowerPoint presentation below) and because literacy for them is 40% or more behind ours the potential increase of incomes possible for them is huge. Illiterate people are also twice as likely to be unemployed, so a fun way of learning about words and their meanings will help a lot of people a lot earlier. Illiteracy and ignorance go hand in hand with low incomes and poverty. Those who ignore these monstrous spectres both at home or abroad are deluding themselves, as poverty anywhere leads to unrest, and creates threats to all the neighbours of a global economy.

 

Of a billion illiterates in the world, two thirds are women. Do smart literate women who have good jobs and money help illiterate women elsewhere escape from cycles of abuse and poverty? Who has the intelligence to see the financial gains in working and trading with people that earn, create and achieve like you versus interacting with those who live in poverty because they cannot read and so have much less to offer? How can great achievements be created by the illiterate if the knowledge needed to create 99% of anything considered great can't be read? Help your kids learn to read early in life, or they will suffer later, by being in poverty, in poorer health, in dubious relationships, more likely to be involved in crime, laid off or unemployed and suffer in so many other unspoken ways.

 

In the USA 11 million people (~10% of the US workforce) lack the most basic reading skills to even participate in a literacy test, yet 99% of workers require reading ability every day they work to fill in forms, bank, read signs, schedules and instructions. On the other end of the scale only 13% of Americans are considered proficient in their ability to read (making the USA vulnerable to a bureaucracy that ensures only the minimum is achieved.) Orwell in his book 1984 noted that 'dumbing down' was something Big Brother used to control the population. Now we can see at least one nation where dumbing down is taking place, the high school dropout rate in the USA is at 34%. The USA used to lead the world with people in higher education with 30%, now it has less than 14%. (Should we wonder where they will find the skilled workers they need for the technology that dominates our constantly improving world? American stats indicate a shortfall of 10 million skilled employees by 2010 or that means 11% of the population will need to work two skilled jobs or importing the educated people they need.) More than half the graduates of American high schools cannot do their jobs adequately as they lack many of the most basic skills employers expect. 30+% of high school graduates are not even properly prepared for university (meaning: literacy, communication and study skills are less than adequate). Of every 100 American students in grade 9 only 8% will receive a college degree. 50% of the U.S. population, ages 16-65, are functionally illiterate. The estimated yearly cost of illiteracy (in the USA) due to non-productivity, crime and loss of tax revenue is $225 billion. Source: Adult Literacy Survey.

 

By losing $750/per person annually one might wonder at the bureaucrats and politicians who think it too costly to increase literacy. (The amount paid to each child in increased allowances for the several years they recalled their dreams was tiny compared to what the per capita losses are in one year.) Add to that annual health care costs 4 times greater for people with low levels of literacy (due to avoiding health care, misread prescriptions and care procedures.)

 

US employers cannot compete with the levels of ignorance and low skill levels that schools are passing off as 'educated'. (Imagine how much more of a problem that is in nations of the bottom billion.) Who can work with employees who lack not just the 3 R's (readin', 'ritin, n 'rithmatic) but lack work ethics, communication skills (written and spoken), critical thinking and problem solving? Those who are managing now are living on borrowed time with the rest of the world speeding forward with their emphasis on improved education. Wealthy American overlords will at some point feel the wrath of those they have kept ignorant when the economy tumbles again and/or their less than well educated workforce find they are no longer a match for the educated and skilled of other nations, and that their best and smartest have fled for better work conditions and better pay in other nations. We've recently seen how quickly the American economic bubble can burst. Patching over and regaining position from the effects of ignorance and illiteracy is not as difficult to achieve as creating an economic patch, and a lot less costly. It takes longer though.

 

Oddly, enemies of literacy exist. In North America they hide their fascist 'conservative' attitudes behind a genteel façade of wealth and influence, blind to the ruin they support for a short term gain. They block people from learning or dissuade them from the need to read. Americans will have to work very hard to overcome the damage already created by skimping on education. Canada isn't far behind the USA seeing it too has allowed leaders with similar 'conservative' agendas to dictate unduly cheap solutions that deprive those least able to speak in their defence.

 

To increase the effectiveness of our program, in conjunction with increasing literacy, we aim to chronicle all the plants of every nation (and provide an income to people/groups who share information on the medicinal use of plants). With this action we create a basis for simple business, trade and cooperatives, to help people who are less economically fortunate to use their knowledge and abilities to escape poverty.

 

The practical use of dreams and visions is a motivating and guiding factor in all our projects, just like it was for people like Einstein and Edison, so we are working to help others obtain the same use of tools we all have and can use to succeed.

 

Click on this literacy link to see a PowerPoint presentation about our program.

 

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