National Adult Literacy Database

January 24, 2011

This week, our story comes from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.  The author, Margaret Bear, is enrolled in literacy tutoring with READ Saskatoon.  The story below is actually a speech given by Margaret during the PGI Golf Tournament for Literacy.  She had won the Kinsmen Learner Achievement Award at The Willows Golf and Country Club, on September 17, 2010. READ Saskatoon hosted the 4th Annual READ Saskatoon PGI Golf Tournament for Literacy.

Speech

by Margaret Bear

I would like to thank READ Saskatoon for giving me this opportunity to be here today and share my learning path. My journey has been challenging. I was kicked out of high school. I got sick of wandering around being a single mom, with no direction. It was not the life I wanted for me or Dane. After three years out of school, I made a decision to honour my family. I enrolled at SIIT and got my grade 12.

After SIIT, I found myself in a relationship where I got pregnant again and I decided to join READ Saskatoon’s adult literacy program: Project Ready. The program gave me the opportunity to build a portfolio that including getting certificates in: first aid, family literacy, whimis, safe food handling and lots of work experience. I built my resume and found that I wanted a better life for me and my family. I made new friends and most importantly, I learned I wanted to continue my education and nothing was going to stop me.

The doors started to open. I got a job at Whitecap as an educational assistant. Then got my youth worker certificate but wait…there’s more! I learned I could get a degree and today I’m in my second year of Indian Social work at FNUC.

So, what does literacy mean to me? It means a lifelong learning, the ability to listen to my children, the ability to reduce the struggles that are out there. It has opened the doors to summer employment, to being a better worker, and being a better mother. I know first hand the limitations that low literacy has on people – it means they can’t read to loved ones, read bills, and it adds pressure on those around them to support their challenges and limitation.

I believe in a world where families don’t have to struggle. Where systems support, not confine. Where families are strengthened, not broken. Where literacy is a part of life not just a word or a commercial or a billboard. In closing, I would like to thank the Kinsmen Club of Saskatoon for supporting this award.

(This story was taken with permission, from the READ Saskatoon website, in the PGI Golf Tournament for Literacy 2010 section - here: www.readsaskatoon.com/events/pgi2010/pgi2010.htm)