What Is Functional Literacy?

This is the question I asked myself today as I attended day one of the week-long Literacy for All conference hosted by Bibliotek Botkyrka in, Hallunda Sweden.

I am very fortunate to be one of 15 delegates selected from throughout Europe to attend this conference. For the next four days we will listen to a variety of speakers talk about literacy and illiteracy in Europe, the difficulties facing Europeans living in a trans-cultural environment and the myths and stigmas attached to illiteracy. 

One of the most notable thoughts from today was the question of illiteracy, what does it really mean. Caroline Kerfoot from the Centre for Research on Bilingualism in Stockholm University spoke about functional literacy and it's definitions. 

Functional literacy can be defined as having appropriate literacy skills to meet your own personal needs. She gave the example of farmers in remote areas of East Africa, who use smart-phones to monitor crop prices to determine the best time to harvest their crops. Or taxi driver in South Africa who have no drivers licenses, little or no formal education and yet are safer drivers than those who do have drivers licenses because they read the traffic signs better. 

The full list of speakers is available here http://functionalilliteracy.org

As well as attending the lectures every morning we are also invited to attend a workshop in the afternoons, facilitated by Ingrid Ramberg for the Multicultural Centre in Botkyrka. The workshop is attended by approximately 20 librarians from throughout Europe. 

Today was a 'getting to know you' session with an intensive hour of discussion and comparison of our respective professions and the types of services we provide. It was interesting to see the diversity that exists in the library profession and also the similarities in the obstacles that we face in connecting with the community.

I'm looking forward to what tomorrow has to offer. Literacy for all- Botkyrka 14.