3,600 women in low-income urban areas learn to read and write

My younger children would ask me to help them with their homework. I couldn't. So I came to this center as soon as it opened.

-- Sughra Hanif, a mother of 10 from Lyari town, Karachi. Above, women from Hanif's class practice a writing exercise./p>

Sughra Hanif, a woman from the low-income Lyari Town in Karachi, Pakistan, brought along one of her 10 children whenever she went out so they could read her bus schedules and bus numbers. "Otherwise I couldn't leave the house by myself," Hanif said. Hanif, who moved to Karachi from a village in 1988, had never gone to school. "My younger children would ask me to help them with their homework. I couldn't," Hanif said. A year ago, a determined Hanif joined a USAID family literacy center at a government school. She is one of 3,658 women who have graduated from 78 literacy centers funded by USAID and implemented by Children's Resources International in Islamabad, Rawalpindi and Karachi. The afternoon classes, run with the cooperation of local government and education officials, allow mothers to tie their own basic literacy and math learning in with their children's lessons. Some go on to get jobs.

Led by USAID-trained government teachers, women attend 1.5-hour classes twice a week for six months, and may continue advanced lessons for another six. Like Hanif, they develop greater self-confidence and poise by practicing speaking and listening skills in addition to reading, writing and math. Mothers share homework with their children and receive books to read together. The new skills directly impact their quality of life. "I told them if you study, you can read bus numbers, you can tell the expiry date on your kids' medications, and you can dial the phone yourself so that public calling places can't cheat you with wrong numbers," said Hafiza Nagori, a literacy master trainer.

In fact, Hanif, who takes in sewing for extra income, has be-come a more efficient seamstress. "I used to measure and cut out cloth by laying another cloth on top," Hanif said. "Now I can use measuring tape and write the measurements down. It makes my work go faster." She tracks her income and ex-penses more accurately and recognizes the letters spelling out medications for her children. A native Seraiki speaker, she has also improved her Urdu, Pakistan's national language and the only way to communicate with Pathan, Punjabi and Sindhi neighbors in diverse Lyari. She no longer needs company to go out. "My husband is happy because I can do my work by myself and don't have to drag him along." And her children get help with their homework. "What I don't know I learn from them," Hanif said. "What they don't know, they learn from me."

April 28, 2006