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| Arabia |
| National Campaign Against Illiteracy Begins Saturday |
| 2004-08-30 |
| Under the support of Princess Sarah Al-Anqari, wife of Makkah Governor Prince Abdul Majeed, the first program of the National Awareness Campaign focuses on eradicating illiteracy and will be launched next Saturday. Addressing a press conference at Effat College yesterday, one of the main participants in the program explained the goal and details of the program. "The campaign aims at eradicating alphabetic and cultural illiteracy among women because the mother is the maker of generations and through her, all of society benefits," said Abdullah Al-Mohammadi, assistant director of Girls' Education in the Makkah region. Alphabetic illiteracy refers to the inability to read and write while cultural illiteracy deals with civilized and responsible behavior. Jeddah will be first in the Kingdom to launch the campaign under the slogan, "My country, I love you." The first phase consists of six seminars and workshops that will end on Sept. 23. The program has been approved by the Ministry of Education based on its 2003 agreement with the United Nations. The program runs for ten years — with a slogan "Illiteracy eradication is everyone's responsibility." Najwa Battiekh, director of Adult Education and Illiteracy Unit, said, "This is a continuation of the Kingdom's successful efforts at eradicating illiteracy which has culminated in its being the first Arab country to receive an award from UNICEF because of reducing illiteracy to 22 percent in two years, down from a high of 60 percent." The unit's programs also include teaching computer courses and English. |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #7 Not this generation of women, Jules, probably. Look to their daughters, who'll take literacy for granted, and can't stand to see all their hard work wasted. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2004-08-30 5:45:59 PM |
| #6 I hope so, TW. Wouldn't that be something? I try to imagine a day when the women in that part of the world wake up and get really PI*SED off. It's quite a picture-a woman stripping off her abbaya at her own PC, writing blog comments in SUPPORT of democracy and freedom. Sigh-I wonder if I'll live long enough to see it. |
| Posted by: jules 187 2004-08-30 10:32:59 AM |
| #5 Why do I suspect that their idea of "eradicating illiteracy" is eradicating the illiterate? |
| Posted by: BH 2004-08-30 10:23:22 AM |
| #4 But Jules, they hear it at the mosque, its omnipresent on the television with the addition of The Palestine Show and Who's for Jihad!, so what difference will it make? Perhaps a few will get on the web and discover Rantburg, et al. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2004-08-30 10:16:03 AM |
| #3 My first reaction was Great! It can't but help! Then I realized what they will be reading: Jews are to blame for everything, America is the great Satan, no open practice of Christianity will be allowed, Islam is the only real religion... We now return to our regularly scheduled programming. |
| Posted by: jules 187 2004-08-30 9:31:03 AM |
| #2 hmmmmmm |
| Posted by: Frank G 2004-08-30 8:18:07 AM |
| #1 im not in undrestand this. |
| Posted by: muck4doo 2004-08-30 8:12:00 AM |