bmo­bile has re­newed its al­liance with Moms for Lit­er­a­cy. The pro­gram caters to chil­dren who are slip­ping through the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem due to their need for a dif­fer­ent teach­ing style, the pro­gram has al­so pro­vid­ed a sec­ond chance for chil­dren who re­quire a more hands-on ap­proach or ex­tra mo­ti­va­tion to im­prove their lit­er­a­cy skills.   

De­tails fol­low in this press re­lease from bmo­bile: 

bmo­bile re­newed its al­liance with Moms for Lit­er­a­cy, a unique lit­er­a­cy pro­gram de­vel­oped in Trinidad and To­ba­go. Cater­ing to chil­dren who are slip­ping through the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem due to their need for a dif­fer­ent teach­ing style, the pro­gram has pro­vid­ed a sec­ond chance for chil­dren who re­quire a more hands-on ap­proach or ex­tra mo­ti­va­tion to im­prove their lit­er­a­cy skills. 

Pro­gram Di­rec­tor and Founder, Am­ber Gon­za­les, ex­plained that this pro­gram is not for chil­dren with di­ag­nosed learn­ing is­sues such as dyslex­ia but in­stead caters to the grow­ing num­ber of chil­dren who sim­ply are not keep­ing up in their cur­rent class­es. "Par­ents and teach­ers may con­tact us, but some­times we get re­fer­rals from the Ju­di­cia­ry and the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion as well. Our pol­i­cy is that no child should be de­nied this op­por­tu­ni­ty so in cas­es where par­ents are un­able to meet the tu­ition con­tri­bu­tion, we val­ue the con­tri­bu­tions made by cor­po­rate spon­sors like bmo­bile,” she not­ed. "We are very hap­py that com­pa­nies like bmo­bile have al­lowed us to sur­vive in the pe­ri­od of the pan­dem­ic and tran­si­tion. We shift­ed to on­line pro­grams though we do con­tin­ue in-house learn­ing as it is pre­ferred by some par­ents and chil­dren too," she added. 

bmo­bile has con­tin­ued to sup­port the or­ga­ni­za­tion's ex­cel­lent work over the years, con­tribut­ing di­rect­ly to off­set the tu­ition costs for a se­lect num­ber of stu­dents. Ger­ard Coop­er, Gen­er­al Man­ag­er Shared Ser­vices at TSTT, not­ed, "The re­al­i­ty is that ear­ly ed­u­ca­tion and in par­tic­u­lar ear­ly lit­er­a­cy is key to al­low­ing stu­dents to lead mean­ing­ful and hap­py lives as adults. But it is al­so need­ed to com­bat many of the so­cial is­sues that con­tin­ue to plague so­ci­ety in T&T. We are very hap­py with the suc­cess­ful out­comes we have seen with Moms for Lit­er­a­cy and we call on oth­er or­ga­ni­za­tions to join us, or con­tribute to the cause in what­ev­er way that they can. And if you can't con­tribute fi­nan­cial­ly, vol­un­teer! But we do hope that lit­er­a­cy rates con­tin­ue to grow in T&T and that more peo­ple al­so rec­og­nize read­ing and writ­ing as a valu­able life tool and an en­joy­able pas­time," Coop­er added.  

Ms. Gon­za­les be­lieves (as re­search al­so shows) that lit­er­a­cy is the key to a hap­py and suc­cess­ful aca­d­e­m­ic life. "It is when chil­dren fall be­hind in their abil­i­ty to read and un­der­stand and then can­not catch up, that we see low self-es­teem pop­ping up, then we see all the so­cial ills that fol­low in­clud­ing crime and abuse," she added. She al­so at­trib­uted lit­er­a­cy is­sues as lead­ing to stu­dents be­com­ing school dropouts. To com­bat this, Moms for Lit­er­a­cy has de­vel­oped a unique ap­proach that side­steps the heav­i­ly mar­ket­ed one-size-fits-all-phon­ics sys­tem and in­stead starts with as­sess­ing the child be­fore build­ing a cus­tomized ap­proach to cre­ate sus­tain­able read­ing and writ­ing out­comes. "We build con­fi­dence in lit­er­a­cy over time and with prac­tice and ac­tive­ly en­cour­age par­ents to get in­volved too," she stat­ed.  

Gon­za­les start­ed the idea of Moms for Lit­er­a­cy with a friend, at first sell­ing books to in­spire chil­dren to read out­side of the schools' cur­ricu­lums. They placed a small ad for re­me­di­al read­ing class­es at a lo­cal busi­ness in 1992 and soon were over­whelmed with de­mand. The or­ga­ni­za­tion re­ceived a Na­tion­al Award for Pub­lic Ser­vice in Ed­u­ca­tion in 2005. The pro­gram has as­sist­ed hun­dreds of stu­dents over the years and ac­tive­ly seeks vol­un­teers who can con­tribute from as lit­tle as 3-4 hours a month to read to stu­dents and share the joy of lit­er­a­cy. Gon­za­les lives each day know­ing that "every hu­man be­ing giv­en the right sup­port will con­tribute mean­ing­ful­ly back to so­ci­ety."