The LitCamp Program Launches in Haiti

We are overjoyed to announce that LitWorld, along with our extraordinary partners, Foundation TOYA and The Children of Haiti Project, has launched the LitCamp program at our Innovation Hub in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. 

It is momentous to watch the young women of Foundation TOYA lead LitCamp activities with confidence, to come together in community to read aloud together, to learn new songs in Haitian Creole, and to watch each child so eager to write and tell her stories. 

For daily updates read the LitCorps Travel and Tips Blog, and follow LitWorld on Twitter and "like" our Facebook page for photos from the field.

Pam Allyn's Latest HuffPost Blog - Voices and Choices: The Secrets to Summer Reading and Writing Success

 

In her latest blog for HuffPost Parents, LitWorld's Founder and Executive Director, Pam Allyn, explains how to use children's own stories to build a joyful and engaging summer learning life.

"Reading is like breathing in and writing is like breathing out, and storytelling is what links both: it is the soul of literacy. The most powerful tool that we have to strengthen literacy is often the most underused and overlooked, and that is a child's own stories. This is something that every child has regardless of their socioeconomic background."

Click here to read the full piece.

Scholastic Literacy Champion Spotlight Features LitWorld LitCamps

We are honored and deeply grateful to share the latest Scholastic Literacy Champion Spotlight featuring LitWorld's LitCamp program. Click here to read the full story on the Scholastic website.

"As more and more kids poured out of the vans that arrived on the first morning of the LitCamp, one boy in the crowd stood out. He sat apart from everyone, the only child without a bright blue T-shirt or a nametag. Instead of holding a book or a ball in his hands, he stood with over 15 hand woven placemats he needed to sell to support his family.

Like many of our campers, the boy, who introduced himself as Ronald, was recently relocated to the rural area outside of metro Manila from the slum in which he was born. Like many of our campers, Ronald was too young to work but working anyway. Like many of our campers, Ronald’s everyday life did not leave enough space for joy."

Continue reading on scholastic.com.

Pam Allyn Shares the LitCamp Model on NBC New York

In an interview with NBC News 4 New York, LitWorld Founder, Pam Allyn, shared the innovative LitCamp model and explained how LitWorld creates joyful reading communities to combat summer learning loss. We were thrilled to see the faces of our LitClub and LitCamp children from around the world featured prominently during this segment, and delighted to see our untraditional model for literacy learning growing, spreading and transforming the world of education.

LitWorld Board Member Chernor Bah Leads UN Youth Takeover on Malala Day

Today is Malala Yousafzai's 16th birthday. Last October she was shot by the Taliban for speaking out and standing up for every girl's right to an education. Today LitWorld Board Member and Leader of the Youth Advisory Group for the United Nations Education First Initiative, Chernor Bah, lead the Malala Day celebration at the UN. Malala addressed the audience, and rallied the world to mobilize for every girl's right to a quality education.

Our LitWorld interns were part of the audience of more than 600 young leaders at the UN Youth Takeover. After Malala's speech‬, youth from over 60 countries presented members of the UN with The Youth Resolution: The Education Young People Want, an official document conveying young people's demands on education.

LitWorld's work in the LitClubs and Camps worldwide speaks to every point that Malala made in her speech, for these are portable, nimble, democratic solutions that can change the world of education. Our essence, our core, the foundation of our work is exactly what she said: books, pens and the power of the human voice to change the world.

LitWorld Founder Pam Allyn on Bloomberg TV

LitWorld's Founder and Executive Director, Pam Allyn, joined Dominique Young from Scholastic to talk about the importance of summer learning and to offer solutions for keeping kids motivated and passionate about reading all summer long.

"The idea of being a reading role model is really important, as well as creating safe spaces for your child to read and not judging them in terms of what they read." --Pam Allyn

Let's Put the 'Summer' Feeling Back into 'Summer Learning' for Kids

In her latest piece for the Huffington Post, LitWorld's Executive Director, Pam Allyn, explains why we must reinvent summer learning for all children, and how the LitCamp model of social emotional learning is a joyful way to overcome the summer slide.

"Truly joyous learning should and can happen 12 months a year. Yet, we still operate on the idea that there are only two options for children in the summer months. Children are either out of school, which worked in the agrarian times when many children were needed on farms, but is not suited to urban children who now spend most of their summer in cramped and hot apartments. Or, they go to the often dreaded summer school, which is generally a "remedial" time for struggling learners, or additional test prep time for children from our lowest socioeconomic communities.

Let us together advocate for a third option, and that is to use what we most love about that special thrill of summer to inspire the creation of great learning opportunities for all children (regardless of income level) while heeding the reality of summer learning loss. The stakes are high, and the "summer slide" is steep."

Read the full piece here