The direct outcome of the literacy research was a set of three publications under a general heading of Women in Literacy Speak Out, including a detailed description of the project and a text for adult literacy classes. One recommendation lead to a second national project - developing curriculum for women's literacy.

Modeling its commitment to feminist process, in winter 1994, through a national "Call for Participants, CCLOW put together a team of 15 women with classroom experience who had developed teaching materials. They attempted to have balance in locale (urban and rural), geography (regional), socio-economic status (full-time teachers and community-based part-time instructors/tutors), and race. Fifteen women from amazingly diverse backgrounds formed a writing team during one intensive four-my retreat, then worked independently over the next year communicating by phone, fax and computer. They reconvened the following year for another intensive week-end to share their "chapters" and to designate one "editor" and an editorial committee. Thirteen women completed modules which were published in 1996 as a "curriculum" called Making Connections. This collection provided a source book of woman- positive materials for literacy or ESL in many settings. The voices of each author 'were left intact framed by chapter on "Feminist Curriculum" and "Dealing with Violence." It aimed to be inclusive and sensitive to class, race, gender and social-economic inequity.

But many programs across Canada had never seen such materials before and did not know how to use them. Their questions lead to the most recent of the CCLOW projects - to train another diverse group of women to lead workshops for otter teachers and tutors. The same feminist process was adopted to bond the group but this one took the organization in new directions when facilitators returned from a year of pilot-testing in June 1998 to share their experiences. Several native women and women of colour expressed dismay or anger at materials they found to be inappropriate for their communities, and some of the women felt they had not clearly understood what CCLOW was when they became involved.

During a weekend retreat, deep wounds were opened as issues of race and class were uncovered, and women of good will discovered that they were not speaking the same language when they used the same words. This literacy project was in fact about literacy at its most profound - the ability to make meaning and communicate across barriers. The problems that are unearthed shook the entire organization and forced it to re-examine both the way it has defined itself and the way it is perceived by others. This crisis occurred at almost the same time as the organization was having to face questions about its own survival, and in some ways, it both heightened awareness at the directors table and mirrored some of the larger debates. These questions touch both women's and literacy organizations: What has feminism to offer minority women? Who can claim to speak for all women? What are the dominant discourses? Whose literacy is privileged? When do women's loyalties to their racial or cultural communities supersede their commitments to women's issues?

The pain of these debates has been almost greater than the pain of too external cuts.

Where does that leave CCLOW and the work it has done? I would argue that CCLOW has moved the women's literacy agenda forward as no other organization has. In looking systematically and steadily at issues that no one wanted to talk about -- women's learning needs, violence as a barrier, feminist process-- they have touched practitioners around the world and seeded further research. A large strand of this conference is built around concerns explored by them. That is a strong legacy.

In relation to the huge divide that was uncovered last year, again there has been a move to find common ground. A group of women who participated in that project have spent the past months trying to make sense of it; they came to this conference to talk about their experience of "othering." and have suggested some directions that might move us outside of our ethnocentric bounds. Centuries of oppression and conditioning have created these bounds, and no magic formula will dissolve them quickly. But the women who have chosen to engage with the problems and search for alternatives, other than rage and hate, seem to me to embody the best of what CCLOW has offered: Opportunity. Without CCLOW, they would not have known one another and had the opportunity to work together.

And CCLOW is trying to reinvent itself as well in its twentieth year. They have opted to use this year's funding to host a national - congress in November. They will invite women who are committed to the goals of promoting women's learning to come together to define what they see as the key issues in that area for the next decade and to say whether there is energy and commitment to reshape CCLOW to address those needs. If there is a response, then CCLOW will exist in an as yet undetermined form in the year 2000. if there is not, then it will celebrate its 20 years of achievement and close down with dignity, allowing other groups to take up the challenges.

Linda Shohet is Director of The Centre for Literacy (Montreal). She has been the Quebec member on the CCLOW board since 1993 and chairs their Literacy Committee. She was a team member on both the curriculum and facilitators projects.

This article was written as a report to CCLOW.