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Importance of Literacy in
Empowerment
"Literacy is at the heart of
basic education for all, and essential for eradicating poverty, reducing
child mortality, curbing population growth, achieving gender equality
and ensuring sustainable development, peace and democracy."
Why Is Literacy Important?
UNESCO, 2010
L iteracy
has an empowering role. It gives people skills which help them improve
their livelihood options, participate in community decision-making, gain
access to information about health care, and much else. Above all, it
enables individuals to realise their rights as citizens and human
beings. "Literacy is not just about reading and writing, it is about
respect, opportunity and development", said Ban Ki-moon, United Nations
Secretary-General. Development without literacy may be the one which is
imposed upon people, rather than being carried out by people themselves.
Empowerment implies a transfer
of power in a dynamic way over a period of time. It comes in two
flavors: one, with benefits to both the entities, those who implement
the process and those who get empowered; two, where power is created out
of nothing by people who otherwise perceive themselves to be powerless.
This could be termed as ‘self-empowerment’. Empowerment is an increment
in consciousness of the stakeholders, and provides the opportunity for
progress to a richer way of life for everybody involved. People become
empowered when they move up the spiral to a higher level of
self-understanding.
Definition of empowerment, to
put simply, is: "leading people to learn to lead themselves".
Empowerment initiatives of government and other like minded agencies
prove to be more fruitful when people are literate.
Law touches the daily life of
every Indian citizen. However, it touches that of the India’s
socio-economically weaker sections in a rather ironic manner. From
facing corruption in public distribution system (ration), to getting
their share of work under MGNREGA, it is they who need to be most aware
of rights and entitlements which various government policies offer.
Unfortunately, it is they who are least aware of the policies which
ensure them basic Constitutional rights. Their ignorance amounts to
vulnerability; an open invitation to exploitation.
We, at Development
Alternatives, believe in imparting functional literacy to empower rural
poor, especially women, with regard to financial and legal matters. This
makes their day-to-day lives better within a short span of time. We have
helped in creating considerable understanding among the needy
communities about various government programmes like MGNREGA, their
Constitutional rights, water management, sanitation, etc.; Poorest Areas
Civil Society programme supported by Department for International
Development, United Kingdom; NREGS+ with United Nations Development
Programme and Government of India, are a few projects where literacy is
a major component. All projects or programmes are rooted in the idea of
awareness generation and literacy campaigns to make people and
communities more empowered and thus to ensure inclusive development. DA
has tried to respond to the legal needs of the rural communities through
programmes like Justice Innovation Fund Project with UNDP. q
Kiran
Sharma
ksharma@devalt.org
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