Success Stories
USAID Projects Provide Basic Literary Skills to Adults in Angola
Credit: USAID/Angola, J. Neves
Armanda Elende is a 50- year old Angolan. She was born in Huambo province, and worked there as a teacher for more than 20 years until she was forced by the war to flee her home in 1998. She came to Luanda as an internally displaced person and subsisted on charity until one day she heard about Alfalit, a USAID-supported faith-based NGO which promotes basic adult literacy programs. She contacted the NGO and was accepted as a teacher, for which she receives a $100 monthly stipend ($50 per class), teaching materials and books. Armanda teaches two classes per day in an informal classroom in one of Luanda's sprawling "musseques" (shantytowns), consisting of home made benches and a blackboard propped under a tree in someone's front yard. The small salary Armanda receives has made her self-sufficient; perhaps more importantly, being able to teach this group of enthusiastic students has greatly improved her self-esteem and she clearly both enjoys her work and is highly regarded by her pupils.
Too many Angolans are illiterate, particularly women. Many Angolans have had no access to formal educational opportunities due to long-term poverty and neglect compounded by years of conflict which has caused many people to flee their homes to live in transient situations for extended periods of time. The Angolan public education system suffers from chronic underfunding and inadequate staff and infrastructure even to accommodate primary education for children; adult services are almost nonexistent. USAID support is helping to alleviate this need.
Armanda's classroom is one of 804 informal learning centers which Alfalit has helped create in Luanda's urban neighborhoods in just one short year, under trees, in churches, or in residents front yards. A visit to any of Alfalit's centers will quickly demonstrate a thirst and aptitude for learning which is gratifying to see. Most students are women, many of them from rural areas in Angola's interior who came to Luanda as IDPs fleeing the war. Many of them say they have never had formal schooling, making the level of literacy many of them have achieved in 6 months or less an impressive accomplishment. The pride these students feel in their newfound ability to write their names, communicate in writing with far away relatives, and help their children with their homework is evident in their smiles when they talk about how the literacy program has helped them. Alfalit coordinates with the Ministry of Education to administer its curriculum and final exams, and so far, over 25,000 students have graduated Alfalit's basic literacy program. Some of them have gone on to continue their studies through Angola's public education system, though many others urge Alfalit to consider developing a more advanced curriculum for basic education graduates.
As Armanda Elende states: "there are differences in teaching adults and children. It's harder to teach adults, you have to be patient. Adults miss class more often because they have other responsibilities to attend to. But, with the method we use, learning to read and write is made simpler. Soon even old people become able to write their names and read mail from their families. This is really changing peoples' lives!"
