Bolivia currently has a 35% adult illiteracy rate. The city of Santa Cruz is no different, with 1.2 million inhabitants and growing as countrymen from the poor towns of the Andean region come to the city looking for work.

Illiteracy makes finding employment very difficult.

  
 The Chasqui Founation team, with RC of Amboro project contact Maria Nelly Pavisich (L). 

 Our project contact, Rotarian and former Rotary Youth Exchange student Maria Nelly Pavisich, recently visited a couple literacy training sites. She has prepared this short article, complete with photo's.

  Literacy Site Visit Article

The Rotary Club of Amboro is teaming up with District 6060 to fund this project and also with the Chasqui Humanitarian Foundation, Nur University and IFRA (Instituto de Radio Fe y Alegria) to put the project into action. Materials used are produced and approved by Alfalit, the official literacy and numeracy organization in Bolivia.

Small groups will be set up and will train 1,000 adults to read and do basic math. These groups will meet regularly for approximately nine months. At that time it is expected the adult students will be able to read and write and do basic math at the third grade level. 

The Rotary Foundation will spend $12,000 to fund this project, so it will cost $12 to fund one student.