Reflect: Evaluating a New Approach to Adult Literacy

In October 1993 ACTIONAID, (a British based international NGO working in 20 countries) began a two year action research project to explore possible uses of Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) techniques within adult literacy programmes. This led to the development of the REFLECT approach (Regenerated Freirean Literacy through Empowering Community Techniques) which has proved to be more effective than traditional approaches to literacy at teaching people to read and write and significantly more effective at linking literacy to wider development. In a REFLECT programme there is no textbook no literacy "primer" no pre-printed materials other than a guide for the literacy facilitators. Each literacy circle develops its own learning materials through the construction of maps, matrices, calendars and diagrams that represent local reality, systematise the existing knowledge of learners and promote the detailed analysis of local issues [author]