[AAACE-NLA] Finding Hope

[Archie Willard]

>
>
> Finding Hope at the New Readers of Iowa Twenty-first Conference.
>
> Very few people my age are still active in adult literacy. Time has 
> gone by fast. I have tried so hard to be a voice for the new readers 
> in our country and to give them hope so they can have a better life. 
> As I look back at my life in literacy I have had a full enriched life 
> because of my involvement.
>
> I have been around adult literary for some time now. As dyslexia I 
> have been open about my poor reading skills. Because of my openness I 
> have had many different people come up to me and tell me their story 
> about how hard it was for them to learn to read. Two people that come 
> to mind one a medical doctor and the other a CPA for them to reach 
> their professional goals they had to work very hard and be in the 
> right place at the right time in life. There are not many people today 
> with poor reading skills that make it that far.
>
> Last week the Iowa New Readers had their twenty-first conference. The 
> adult new readers have been coming together to promote reading and 
> sharing things about their lives with each other. “Take Charge of You 
> Money Take Charge of your Life” was the name of the conference. As I 
> look back twenty-one years ago at that time some of these people had a 
> hard time expressing themselves, just saying hello was hard for them. 
> Two of those ladies from the past at the conference were showing 
> others how to use the computers another has been teaching small 
> children to read and she also reads to her grandchildren now. As I 
> look at the people that have been coming for a long time now you can 
> see hope in their eyes, they are ready to try new things, they give 
> back and they are happy. No their not going to be medical doctors or 
> CPA’s. What they have learned is their own enique way of learning and 
> that givers them a 3rd dimension in their learning.
>
> At this conference Wells Fargo worked with us and put on two different 
> sessions on financial literacy. We feel this is a very good 
> partnership, good for the new readers and good for Wells Fargo. We 
> look forward to working with them again and we thank them for caring 
> about the New Readers of Iowa.. Through the years we have worked with 
> many different groups. We have worked on voting with the State of 
> Iowa, We have partner with the Iowa Health System and put on three 
> different health literacy conferences together and plan to keep health 
> literacy as one of our top goals. Many of us have spoken in many 
> different places about adult literacy; we have gone into the schools 
> and told our stories about our reading difficulties.
>
> After attending the twenty-first New Readers Conference and seeing how 
> the peoples live had changed I feel excited about where we are going 
> so I need to keep going no matter what my age is.
>
> Archie Willard
>


-- 
Archie Willard
URL - http://www.readiowa.org/archiew.html