You couldn't say that Laubach stormed the province when it arrived some ten years ago, but some bold effort by committed volunteer leaders, and the diligent work of many fine tutors has helped many British Columbia adults to learn to read and write.

Cher McLean

Leading and organizing is essential to the front-line job of tutoring adult learners one-on-one. It is to the leaders and organizers that we especially dedicate this page. One of them is Cher McLean of Kamloops. "Laubach in British Columbia has always been a pioneer effort. The mountains are high in other ways besides physical." Cher said that the provincial colleges had already begun providing adult literacy to communities. This made it difficult for Laubach to find its niche and to be accepted by professional educators. "Through maintaining a presence on the Literacy BC board, which supports college-based literacy programs, Jan Seedhouse and Wayne Cunningham were able to form partnerships in the province."

Literacy BC is the provincially-funded umbrella organization that includes in its membership most literacy organizations in the province. There are many adult-literacy efforts operated through the community and university college system in the province, but these classroom-based programs do not help adults who want and need individual attention. For this purpose Literacy BC refers students to Laubach Literacy councils.

Crystal Lee was an early Laubach Field Services Coordinator for British Columbia. She lived in the small central-BC community of Chase and commuted the lower mainland. Carolyn Nystoruk, who worked for Immigrant Services and used Laubach materials, began receiving many calls from non-immigrant adult learners who wanted tutoring. She started a Laubach council in her home and kept it running for two years.

Cher McLean then took over the development of the council and obtained office space in downtown Kamloops. With the financial help and volunteer support of the local Soroptomist Club and the BC Tel volunteer group they were able to expand their program and buy computers. 60 tutors were trained by the end of the first year.

In 1994 Cher approached one of the local newspapers about a full page on community literacy for International Literacy Day. It was a huge success and led to a monthly literacy page, "The Learners Network News." During 1995, the council, now called Kamloops Laubach Literacy Council, was registered as a non-profit society and was granted charitable status. The original volunteers included Cher, Carolyn and Crystal along with Cathy Falconer, Susan Druerden, Anne Marie Erickson, Ethel Sheremeta and Evelyn Wal.

In 1997, Cher, now Provincial President, presented the success of the Kamloops program to a community forum sponsored by both governments. This lead to the formation of the Holistic Adult Learner Education Program (HALE). HALE was modeled after a similar program in Prince Edward Island.

A community advisory committee was set up and included Reg MacNamara, Howard Hedly, Wayne Cunningham, Ken White and Evelyn Wal. In the fall of 1997, HALE had two locations with twelve staff. The Autoskills computer-based program was an integral part of the program. Over time HALE was revised and expanded and became a model for literacy program delivery.

Cher continued as provincial president, holding many meetings and forming a new BC provincial organization under President, Anne Knott. Anne later became national president of LLC.

Laubach BC's first provincial conference was held in Vancouver in 1994. Field Services Coordinators Jan Seedhouse and Alice Caldwell were hired in 1995. Jan was responsible for the BC interior and Alice took care of the BC lower mainland. She was followed by Anne Knott, Karen Power and then Jerry Horne, who has been Field Services Coordinator for the BC lower mainland since 1999.

Myrna McGregor is currently the Provincial Training Officer, taking over from Marilyn Hunley in 1999. Trainers, past and present, include Terry Robinson, Herb Breckinridge, Jan Church, Jane Fitschen, Fran O'Rourke and David Broughton. Other key volunteers include Arlene Epp, Dave Hogg, Jim Soulé and Jennifer Gray-Grant.

Many others are worthy of note, and we apologize for not mentioning their important contribution to our work in British Columbia. There have been over 700 volunteers who have served as Laubach tutors in BC since 1991.