Main content

How literacy can change a life

How an app in Somaliland, moveable classrooms in Bangladesh and volunteer coaches in the UK are helping more adults learn to read

Learning to read empowers people, reduces poverty and increases their job chances. Yet more than 700 miliion adults are illiterate, the majority of them women. We look at innovations to help adults learn how to read from flatpack classrooms in flood-prone regions of Bangladesh, to an app teaching tens of thousands in Somaliland. Plus how adults in the UK are improving their reading skills thanks to an army of volunteer teachers using a method developed in prison.

Presenter: Myra Anubi
Reporter/producer: Claire Bates
Series producer: Jon Bithrey
Editor: Tom Bigwood
Sound mix: Andrew Mills

(Image: Jahura Begum, Shabnur Akhter, Rashida Begum at Friendship class in Bangladesh, Friendship)

Available now

23 minutes

Last on

Mon 15 Apr 2024 02:06GMT

Broadcasts

  • Tue 9 Apr 2024 07:06GMT
  • Tue 9 Apr 2024 14:06GMT
  • Tue 9 Apr 2024 17:06GMT
  • Tue 9 Apr 2024 21:06GMT
  • Sat 13 Apr 2024 21:06GMT
  • Sun 14 Apr 2024 09:06GMT
  • Mon 15 Apr 2024 02:06GMT

People fixing the world on YouTube

Watch stories of people changing their world on the World Service English YouTube channel