Group aims for zero illiteracy in country

ACCORDING to the latest statistics, 7% of South Africans cannot read or write. Jeff Paulse, a retired school principal, decided he wanted to do something about this and started the non-profit organisation Reading and Writing Solutions (RWS). Paulse,

has spent 35 years of his professional life as an educator. His organisation is in its fourth year and he has lofty ambitions for it – he wants to reduce the illiteracy figure to zero.

RWS works with schools to identify weak readers and sits with them for an hour every day for five days. “We take them out of their classes for that hour,” he said.

The pupils are taught, as Paulse put it, “one on one”.

RWS identifies the child’s weak points, which are then “sharpened” until they are eventually able to read and write normally. “This is vital to the learning process because being unable to read means you’re completely unable to work at all. Before you can read to learn, you must learn to read,” Paulse explained. Being a non- profit organisation, they rely on funding from donors. RWS’s next fundraiser will take place in Athlone, on the corner of Boeschoten and Thornton roads, where they will be selling brandnew books from as little as R10. The money raised from the book sale will go towards buying unused plots of land on which they will build adult reading centres. “We also have a lot of adults coming to us for help.” Paulse said RWS’s mission statement was: “Changing lives and empowering people through reading.” They had a 100% success rate, he said.