Adult illiteracy has direct impact on various social problems like child labour, female infanticide etc. GMRVF has taken some initiatives in the area of adult literacy. The program was first started in Mangalore with eight women students in 2003-04. Later, it was extended to other areas as well.

The effort is not just towards improving the literacy levels but are also to create awareness on key issues like AIDS, different government schemes and programs that they can benefit from and other similar issues that can make a difference in their lives.

Highlights:

• About 10 night schools are run regularly in different locations.
• Attending these schools has improved the social bonding among the community members in most of the cases.
• There is a remarkable progress in terms of the ability to read and write among many women members who have never attended the school.
• These night schools are used as a forum to create awareness on various health, social and other issues.

Case Study:

In Ramdurg, the GMRVF-initiated youth group volunteered to conduct adult literacy classes. The room for conducting classes was given by the community free of cost. 3 youth from the youth club are taking classes on a rotation basis in the evenings. Now there are 22 ‘men’ students of the 27-55 age group enrolled. Foundation follows Adult Literacy module of the State Government of Karnataka. Apart from providing education, the youth club members are helping the community members who are attending the classes to start income generating activities. Thus, these adult literacy classes are acting as forums for learning and also for earning.