A, B, C’s, not as easy as 1, 2, 3: Strengthening literacy interventions in conflict and crisis

• In Event: Practitioner Panel: Notes from the Field

Proposal

There are more than 66 million people in the world who have been forcibly displaced by conflict or persecution, and almost half of these are children and youth. Because of the duration of modern conflicts and protracted crises, it has been estimated that a refugee will be uprooted from his or her life for 20 years (WHO, 2007). Indeed, conflict and crisis is undermining stability in many communities and deepening the world’s inequities. Against this backdrop, basic literacy skills are under threat as continuous education of any kind is a luxury that fewer children and youth in these contexts can access.

Literacy is integral to reducing inequity, rebuilding societies and keeping the peace. It is an essential cornerstone of education service delivery, helping people survive trauma and crisis, make better health and well-being decisions, and protect livelihoods. With more than half of the 21.3 million refugees today under the age of 18 and 121 million children and adolescents currently out of primary and lower secondary school worldwide, literacy is under threat. While decades of research has shown that learning to read a familiar language is important for initial reading success—indeed it is the fastest and shortest way to acquire a new language successfully — one must understand that language, like education, has a constructive and destructive face.

This presentation will address the challenges of addressing literacy in humanitarian and development settings. We will explore the way the donor and practitioner community frame literacy amidst competing priorities in conflict and crisis settings. For while progress has been made toward increasing equitable access to education as part of donor commitments, significant knowledge gaps remain regarding effective ways to develop core literacy skills that enable children and adults to survive and thrive in challenging environments. Finally, we look at reflections to consider when designing and implementing literacy programs and ways to link these efforts into mitigating cycles of violence and building peace.

During a crisis one of the goals of humanitarian relief is child protection. Advocacy literature points out that “certain aspects of education can inherently protect children: the sense of self-worth that comes from being identified as a student and a learner; the growth and development of social networks; the provision of adult supervision and access to a structured, ordered schedule” (Nicolai & Triplehorn, 2003, p. 9). In this presentation we posit that one of the primary ways we can protect children and youth is by helping them develop literacy skills. We propose a model of literacy as a survival tool serving to protect children and youth living through a crisis or conflict and not only helping them to survive, but to build a bridge to a more secure future for themselves, their families and communities. This model posits that literacy protects children in crisis and conflict contexts because it: (1) provides an avenue to convey lifesaving information around health, safety and protection issues; (2) provides stability and a sense of normalcy in the midst of chaos; (3) reduces the likelihood they will get pulled into child labor, recruited into militias or engage in deviant behavior; (4) leads to increased self-confidence and self-efficacy; (5) brings back a sense of hope and a vision of a better future; and (6) promotes peace and reconciliation.

When viewed together, the benefits of ensuring children in crisis and conflict have access to literacy programming that meets their specific needs (vital information, psychosocial care, etc.) seem unmistakable, yet in a humanitarian response, education only receives meagre funding when it’s funded at all. We will lay out the evidence for how literacy protects children in the above-mentioned ways and why it should be funded as a critical part of any humanitarian response.

In addition we will discuss the various challenges to implementing literacy programming in contexts of crisis and conflict and propose some ways we can rethink literacy implementation so that it protects children and youth and plays a vital role during a humanitarian response. This presentation will move forward the narrative around education as a part of humanitarian response as opposed to development and will provide some concrete ways that we can provide support for on the ground implementation of literacy programming in these difficult contexts.


Global Partnership for Education (2017): http://www.globalpartnership.org/focus-areas/out-of-school-children.
Koda, K., & Reddy, P. (2008). Cross-linguistic transfer in second language reading. Language Teaching, 41(04), 497-508.
UNICEF: Bush and Saltarelli (2000). The Two Faces of Education in Conflict: Towards a Peacebuilding Education for Children.

Authors

• Rebecca Stone, American Institutes for Research

• Amy West, American Institutes for Research

• Lauren Reeves, American Institutes for Research