Women’s Literacy Services in North America: A Directory

Purpose & Criteria:

WE LEARN is a community promoting women’s literacy as a tool that fosters empowerment and equity for women. WE LEARN focuses on education, specifically the basic literacies women need in order to gain access to systems of power and to achieve personal and community empowerment. WE LEARN promotes collaboration, learning, and networking among individuals and organizations working with women.

In order to walk our talk, we think it’s important to create communities of practice among those organizations and agencies with similar visions.  

•  Who shares the goals of addressing women’s basic literacy needs?
•  How can we contact them?
•  What do these organizations specifically do?
•  How and what can we learn from each other? What specific promising practices do we have to share?

In this spirit, WE LEARN seeks to create a comprehensive, accurate, and up-to-date web-based directory of organizations and services, public and private agencies, that share WE LEARN’s interest in:

• The concerns of low-income and poor women;
• Women’s basic literacy and English-language skill development;
• Transitions (or upgrading), job skills development, and related basic education; and
• Women overcoming personal and social barriers to solve community problems.

Our primary interest for this directory is to make visible the intentionally women-focused community-based programs and organizations engaged in the delivery of adult basic/literacy education.  We define these as containing two or more of the following components:

• Enroll only women; AND/OR
• Articulate a mission or vision focused directly on addressing the adult basic literacy/education needs of women; AND/OR
• Includes some form of curriculum design or programming that consciously address or support the gender-based societal issues or learning needs related to women.

Please answer as many questions as you can - completely as possible.
The information provided will be made available through a searchable directory on the WE LEARN website.

Thank You