INTRODUCTION

This year, Laubach Literacy New Brunswick(LLNB) celebrates NB Literacy Day with a promotion of the success of literacy training programs. The high cost of low literacy skills to individuals and communities sparked a desire to create this educational tool, with the hope it would be useful, from fund-raising to student and/or volunteer recruitment.

LLNB is thankful to the National Literacy Secretariat for funding its project proposal and to Steering Committee members who volunteered time and advice for this effort. Our highest regard goes out to the men and women who revealed themselves, their goals, and struggles in life, in order to share valuable learning moments with others.

These remarkable learner stories are matched with literacy-related issues in a document aimed towards better education for all. Some were penned totally by the learners, while others were collected through face-to-face or phone interviews and compiled for print. They are more than essays or interviews on paper. They reflect lived and learned experiences, expressed in the students’ own words. They are filled with overcoming victory in a battle against illiteracy, ignorance, and intolerance.

During the course of this project, I travelled throughout the province to talk with learners whom I’d never met before. I am thankful to LLNB for allowing me to participate in a great learning experience. With each interview, I left with a fresh understanding of the meaning of “success,” as well as a new face to go along with the story. I am richer for such contacts and hope that even a small measure of the same richness touches readers, placing them in these moments of struggle and success.

I urge literacy workers to continue listening to learner accounts and students to keep on exercising their voice. I solicit the available resources of volunteers and sponsors, the services of facilitators and tutors, and the full supportive commitment of families and friends. The responsibility for literacy belongs to each and every one of us. It must become an individual concern, a community effort, and a provincial priority. Only then, can we advance.

Joan Perry, LLNB’s “Live & Learn” Project Coordinator