Imagine if you didn’t know how to read or write and couldn’t communicate with others around you. Many of us cannot relate to this because we are fortunate enough to be able to go to school and learn these essential life skills. Yet, many kids, teenagers, and adults around the world do not have the opportunity and income to be exposed to these things. Last week, from Monday, January 27^th to Friday, January the 31^st, the Global Perspectives Human Rights council held a literacy week in order to educate the school about literacy around the world. These students, along with Mrs. McLean planned an educational week along with many activities to get the whole school involved in a campaign to spread awareness.

All through out the week, posters were set up around the Great Hall highlighting different parts of the world and their problems with literacy. These regions included, Latin America, South Asia, the Middle East, and many more. There was also a raffle set up with prizes included, a kindle electronic reader, and multiple Chapter’s gift cards. The raffle earned $280 which was enough to provide supplies for a literacy outreach program in Kenya for a year.

On the same day, there was a game show in the Great Hall hosted by the Human Rights council leader, Jahid Adam. Participants experienced a trivia game with questions concerning literacy around the world. Mr. Healy, the Head of Grade 9, was the eventual winner and walked away at the end with more than a handful of Hershey Kiss chocolates. That same day, members of the Human Rights council went around the Dunbar neighbourhood collecting books for an organization called Books for Me. The week prior, they had gone around distributing flyers to each household. The book drive was extremely successful and managed to collect over a thousand books, ranging from world encyclopedia’s to children books. Many houses were extremely generous and left boxes filled with books outside their doors for delivery. On Wednesday, Briony Taylor, a speaker from Frontier College came to the school to speak during lunchtime. She spoke about Frontier College, an organization she worked for, and how it has helped Canadian’s with literacy problems. Finally, on Friday, the last day of literacy week, winners for the raffle were announced and the successful campaign came to an end.

Jahid Adam, co-chair of the Human Rights council reflected on the week by saying, “This past week was an extremely successful one, I am extremely proud of the committee members for putting in their time and efforts and they truly helped to make this week possible as I never thought that we would collect so many books.” Although literacy week is now gone and passed, it was a great week filled with both fun and education for the school.