Examples of callers to the ALCC and how they described their reasons for wanting to enrol in a literacy program:

• A man who works in a restaurant wants to improve his reading skills in order to become a waiter.
• A woman planning to take a course to be a sexual abuse counsellor is worried her reading and spelling skills will not be good enough to pass the course.
• A woman, who has always worked as a barmaid or chambermaid, wants to get out of what she describes as a "working ghetto".
• A woman who works full-time as a childcare worker wants to improve her writing skills because it "takes me so long to write a report."
• A man who has been working at the same company for years where an opportunity has come up, for the first time, to fill a steam engineer's position needs to get his ticket by next spring or the "chance will be lost". He needs help to pass the exam.
• A women who, as a child, was made to feel like a dummy", says "The fear when you can't read and write is overpowering - like being blind.'