>> Kaleena Black:
Hello, everyone,
and welcome to this Library of
Congress Literacy Award webinar.
I'm Kaleena Black
and really glad
that you're joining us today
for the fourth and final part
of our Literacy Awards
Successful Practices
Webinar Series.
Today's topic is on Culturally
Relevant Literacy Approaches.
Thank you so much
for being here.
Just some housekeeping
items before we get started.
We can just go to
the next slide.
Just to let you know that we
are recording this program,
and we will start the recording
as soon as we're able to do so.
As this event will be
recorded, any questions
or other participant
contributions may be made
publicly available as part
of the Library's archives.
We are so glad that
you're here, and as I said,
you'll have the opportunity
to talk to each other
and our panelists via the chat.
So just to get started
with that, we would love
if you could share
your first name
and where you're joining
us from in the chat.
Helpful to know who's
in the room with us
and where you're coming from.
Great. So wonderful to see
from Virginia, Maryland,
Los Angeles, New Jersey.
Great, we're so glad that
you're here with us today.
So can you go to the
next slide, Kathy?
So just a little
bit of background
about the Literacy Awards.
Some of you may already know
quite a bit about this program,
but the Literacy
Awards was originated
by David M. Rubenstein in 2013,
and it honors organizations
that are working to promote
and expand literacy [inaudible]
in the United States
and worldwide.
And the awards recognize groups
that are doing exemplary,
innovative and replicable work.
And they emphasize and spotlight
the need for the whole community
to come together in striving
for universal literacy.
So this slide just shows
us a recap of a video
about this year's
winners and honorees.
And then the next slide is
just gives you a glimpse
into our website that gives
a little bit more information
about the 2021 winners.
And my colleagues will be
putting some links into the chat
about the program and
some relevant information
that you might find interesting.
So to learn more about the
winners, please do feel free
to take a look at some
of these resources.
So as I mentioned,
for today's panel is
on Culturally Relevant
Literacy Awards, sorry,
Culturally Relevant
Literacy Approaches.
And we're so glad that the
conversation today will be
facilitated by Dr.
Gholdy Muhammad.
She is a Library of Congress
Literacy Award advisory board
member and also the author
of Cultivating Genius
and Equity Framework
for Culturally
and historically
Responsive Literacy.
And we're glad that she's
joined by our panelists
that represent several
of this year's honorees,
and those organizations
include Friends of Tonga, Inc.,
Global Center for the
Development of the Whole Child
at University of Notre
Dame, FunDza Literacy Trust
in South Africa, and
Associates in Research
and Education for Development.
If you could go to
the next slide, Kathy.
Before I turn things over to
our panelists to hear from them
and also Dr. Muhammad,
we first want
to hear a little
bit more from you.
So we're asking if you could
just complete this question stem
in the chats with a word a
few words or a short phrase.
Blank, that's why I think
culturally relevant literacy
is important.
And if you can make sure
that when you're putting it
in the chat that you
send to everyone.
That way we can all
read, read your thoughts.
Everyone is valuable.
That's why I think culturally
relevant literacy is important.
All students get an
education they deserve.
Belonging.
Advocacy for self and community.
Relationships are
the foundation.
Inclusion.
Equity. Humanity.
Great. These are great so far.
Empowerment.
Accessibility.
Students seeing themselves.
Identity. Great.
So, building a beloved
community.
That's an important one.
So please feel free as, you
know, if something comes to you,
not now but in a few minutes, at
some point during the seminar,
please feel free to
put that in the chats.
But we hope that this
will be a good way to sort
of kickstart this conversation.
And so with that, I am
really thrilled to welcome
and introduce the conversation
and to its presentations
from our panelists.
So first, we'll hear from
our panelists individually,
and then I'll turn things
over to Dr. Muhammad
for the panel discussion.
But first we'll hear
from Chiara Collette.
She is the program manager
at Friends of Tonga.
>> Chiara Collette: Hi everyone.
Good afternoon.
I'm so thrilled and
honored to be here
and to be a best
practice honoree among
such esteemed honorees.
I have thoroughly
enjoyed hearing
about all the other
nominees' work and am excited
to share the stage to talk about
what our organization is doing.
As mentioned, my name
is Chiara Collette,
and I am the US program manager
for the nonprofit
Friends of Tonga.
Next slide, please.
Friends of Tonga
was founded in 2018
by return Peace Corps
engineers in reaction
to Cyclone Gita hitting
Tonga with few ways
to be able to support from afar.
Friends of Tonga is a
volunteer-led nonprofit
organization that seeks
to connect all people
with a vested interest in the
welfare of the Tongan people
and to partner with local
Tongan organizations to support,
enhance and amplify educational
initiatives and opportunities
in the kingdom of Tonga.
We have found our
footing in education
and have a scholarship program
that has sent 72 students
to secondary school to date,
a video read aloud program
and a pen pal program
which I'll be speaking
in more detail to shortly.
And we rebuilt it to honor a
kindergarten that was destroyed
by Cyclone Gita, currently
the first and only cyclone
and earthquake resistant early
childhood education center
in Tonga.
You can see a picture of
some of our students learning
in that classroom on the slide.
As many of you may have read,
Tonga has also been thrown
into the news lately with
the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai
volcanic eruption and
resulting tsunami.
Friends of Tonga has been
able to mobilize support
for organizations on the ground
providing relief services
including water, sanitation,
food and hygiene services,
and we're planning to support
the Ministry of Education
in their school rebuilding
efforts.
All of our programming is
informed by Tongan leaders
on the ground not only in Tonga
but across the diaspora as well.
This is a critical component
to literacy implementation.
Next slide, please.
Oh, thank you.
Our literacy efforts draw
on our own experiences.
As teachers in Tonga
experience Tongan teachers
and the Ministry of Education.
One challenge facing Tongan
students is lack of access
to materials, especially
for English education.
English is the official second
language in Tonga, and knowledge
of English is necessary
for students to get
into secondary school
and succeed beyond that.
These students need to
be able to read and write
and understand English but have
limited opportunities to do so,
especially on outer islands.
To address this challenges,
Friends of Tonga created a video
resource library with permission
for children's authors in which
volunteers record themselves
reading books, and
the pages are shown
for students to follow along.
You can see an example
of what one
of those pages might
look like on this slide.
This creates a very small file
size allowing teachers, parents
and students to download
stories easily
and access these downloads
without an internet connection.
Something that's
crucial in an area
where the internet is
not always reliable.
You may have heard in the news,
if you're following along,
the underwater cable
that provides internet
to Tonga was recently severed
for four weeks after
the volcano.
This program allows us to
expand our reach to all students
across Tonga, regardless
of location or access
to internet once the
initial download is complete.
Students are able to hear
different dialects of English,
see different people reading,
and the read aloud format draws
from an oral tradition
of storytelling.
Each book also has supporting
resources for students
to practice vocabulary,
comprehension
and writing skills
related to the text.
Next slide, please.
Our other literacy project
is the Pen Pal Program
that connects students in
Tonga with students overseas
and including Australia
and the United States.
Students exchange up to six
letters a year while engaging
in meaningful writing practice.
For Tongan students,
they're writing
in their second language.
And all students get to learn
about a culture other
than their own.
Friends of Tonga serves as the
go-between connecting classrooms
and providing resources.
All letters are shared digitally
by taking pictures or scanning,
making the program
more sustainable
than relying on mail service.
Next slide.
These programs have shown
a great deal of impact,
making them highly replicable.
We have 85 books in our digital
library currently with a goal
of 100 books by the end of the
year and eventually one book
for every day of the
Tongan school year.
These books have been
downloaded over 100 times,
but as we mentioned, with
these books being able
to be shared offline, we know
that this reach is even
greater than that number.
Our pen pal program has reached
14 individual classrooms,
10 schools and 450
plus students.
And from our participating
schools, we've been able
to see measurable results
averaging 9 to 10% increases
in student test scores
between 2019 and 2020.
Next slide.
Thank you so much for your time
and your interest
in Friends of Tonga.
I look forward to continuing
the discussion in the panel.
Thank you.
>> Kaleena Black: Thank you so
much, Chiara, for that overview
and thank you for being here.
Next, we will hear from Dr.
Anasthasie Liberiste-Osirus.
She is the senior associate
director of Language
and Literacy Education for
Haiti at the Global Center
for the Development
of the White Child
at the University of Notre Dame.
>> Dr. Anasthasie
Liberiste-Osirus: Hi.
Good afternoon, everyone.
My name is Anasthasie
Liberiste-Osirus,
and I am the senior associate
director for and technical lead
for the Global Center's
initiatives that focus
on language, literacy and social
and emotional development
in Haiti.
Next slide.
With a 61% literacy rate
in Haiti, political unrest
and a fragile economic state,
we here at the Global Center
for the Whole Child focus
on three social constructs
of importance in Haiti, which
is [foreign language] translated
to school, church and home.
These pillars cover our programs
that target nutrition, literacy,
SCL, access to resources,
messaging and mental health.
Next slide.
We serve students from pre-K to
third grade, parents, teachers
and community members.
Our students are supported
through a robust mother tongue
curriculum in Haitian Creo,
in French,
a contextually-appropriate
SCL morning meeting curriculum
with engaging literacy
activities as a play-base
and exploration ECD curriculum.
That's just teaching
from rote memorization
to true student engagement.
Our teachers are
supported through coaching
and teacher training, as well
as interactive demonstrations
and classroom visits
to support our teachers
within the classroom.
We also have parent engagement
activities that sensors
around parent workshops.
During the workshop sessions
we provide children's books
for our literate and
illiterate parents,
teach how to create play-based
learning opportunities
at home, childcare and meals.
We also support mother
empowerment mental health groups
and radio programming marketed
for parents, preschoolers
and out of school students so
we can bridge that literacy gap.
Lastly, we engage the community
by working with priests
in our clusters of schools
to develop sermons that focus
on the fist thousand days of a
child's life, brain development
and child baptismal sessions
that strengthens our
parents' arsenal of strategies
to connect their children, to
connect with their children
through early grade
reading activities.
Next slide.
Next slide.
So when thinking
about our programs,
we focus on a rapid
learning and action model.
We always conduct
a needs assessment.
Then we engage in a program
design that is inclusive
of community members' inputs.
Once that is developed,
we test our implementation
through piloting
in several schools
or communities based
on our objective.
Program monitoring is
always our focus as well
as focus group facilitation
throughout this process.
Once we collect all the
input from the focus groups,
we make program adjustments,
then we do it all over again
until we take, until we can
take that intervention to scale.
This is done for
all of our programs.
Next slide.
All of our programs here,
whether it's [foreign language],
church, school, church or
home, and the main focus is
to activate the L-3
community ecosystem
to help support our
parents, our students,
as well as other
community members.
Next slide.
We service over 350 schools
over five departments in Haiti
and over 30,000 parents,
teachers
and community members throughout
the duration of our projects.
If you want additional
information, resources
or to explore some of our
briefs, please visit us
at go.nd.edu/globalchild.
Thank you.
>> Kaleena Black: Thank you,
Anasthasie, for that overview,
and also, thank you
too for being here.
Next we will hear
from Dorothy Dyer.
She is the program manager
for FunDza Literacy Trust.
>> Dorothy Dyer:
Hello, everyone.
So I'm from FunDza,
which is in South Africa.
We were established in 2011,
and we are, we were recognized
for our successful
practice of continuing
to expand our services
using technology.
So we use cellphone technology
to do our literacy work.
Go on to the next slide.
So just the one before.
Our mission.
So FunDza's mission is to
improve the literacy levels
of South Africa's youth
by encouraging reading
for pleasure, writing for
meaning and learning for life.
Through our work, we aim to
grow generations of educated,
empowered and engaged
young leaders
and citizens in South Africa.
So we aim at teens and young
adults, which is quite unusual
for literacy organizations to
focus solely on that age group.
And we also see literacy as
much broader than just kind
of getting by in academic
success, but it's a matter
of empowerment of
agency of identity too.
So that is our focus
in our work.
You can go to the next slide.
So why we do what we do.
South Africa, as you may know,
is one of the most unequal
countries in the world.
For young adults, our
unemployment rate is over 50%,
and I think that's a
conservative estimate.
And our school students
attend under-resourced
and overcrowded schools.
Books are expensive,
libraries under-resourced,
and reading is seen
as an alien chore.
It's done at school, and as soon
as it's left behind, the better.
So there is not a
strong reading culture.
Communities are book-poor,
but many do have access
to cellphones, interestingly
enough.
And I think we know at
this particular forum,
literacy can change lives.
The next slide is what we do.
So we have a library
on a cellphone.
And it's a mobile site.
It's also available
on a computer.
And every week we have a brand
new exciting local story written
by local writers.
And this has become, so
we've had a story every week
for years.
And what's been really
exciting is to,
in the beginning it was written
by older professional writers.
We have now mentored
young writers
to become our professional
writers
who now write the local
stories that we have.
And we are very strict
on quality.
It's [inaudible] for people
who are not hooked on reading,
we need to really make sure
that the stories are exciting.
They they're almost like a
soapy or a series but on a phone
with cliffhangers to
get people hooked.
And when people can see their
own lives, their own worlds
and their issues, to see that
reading can be meaningful
and can be enriching
to their lives.
We also have blogs
about topical issues,
all sorts of identity
issues, social issues,
written by young
writers as well.
And then what was quite exciting
is we started off as a reading,
focusing very much on reading.
But after young readers started
seeing themselves in stories
and reading our material,
they wanted to write too.
And we started getting in
work from our young readers
who wanted us to
publish their work.
And so we extended our platform
to become a writing platform
for our readers as well.
It's our fan section
where readers can
publish their own work
and then get comments
from other readers.
And we've also got a review
function where we can,
we can send back the
work with some comments,
or we can [inaudible] a little
edit and then publish it.
So that's really exciting,
and that's just been
a very new project
that we've just launched
onto our site.
So we've got our
professional writers,
and we've got our fans'
writers who send in their work
and become part of this
community of writers.
We also have free courses.
Readers can do free courses
based on FunDza's material,
and we are zero rated by
all the networks here.
So people can access us.
In South Africa,
data is extremely
expensive comparatively.
And so this is a huge,
this was also a gamechanger
for us is that we are free.
So people can read local,
exciting, relevant stories
that are fresh off, hot off
the press, and it's free.
And go to the next slide.
So about 15,000 readers
spend about 10 minutes
on our site every day.
So we have a growing readership.
And over 14,000 pieces
of readers' work
have been published.
And in our surveys,
we do annual surveys,
over 80% of readers report that
their reading has improved.
They enjoy reading more and
are reading more frequently.
And I think about 50 to 60 say
that they didn't
enjoy reading before,
but they do enjoy reading now.
Which was also extremely
heartening.
And then we get many comments,
and here are just two just
to give you the taste of them.
Every story I read on
fundza.mobi has a lesson and how
to get pass, I didn't
edit these,
all this troubles
teenagers go through.
They make me aware.
Fundza.mobi is my best friends.
She gets me and understands me.
I was interested that we
were a she in that comment.
Yes, and then another one,
every day I'm looking forward
to your courses because
I have nothing to do.
So I'm not depressed anymore
because there is
so much to learn.
And we get thousands and
thousands of these comments
on our courses and on our
surveys testifying to the impact
that we are having on
young people's lives.
And I think that's it.
Yeah. Thank you.
We also, well with
all these thank yous,
we publish mainly in English.
Our school system at high
school learners are learning
in English, but we
also publish in other,
the other South African
languages as well.
Not as much as in English,
but we really do think it's
an important part of literacy
and of people's identity.
So here are a few.
So thank you.
>> Kaleena Black:
Than you so much.
Thank you for being here and
for that overview of your work.
And finally, I'd like to invite
the Associates in Research
and Education for Development.
This presentation will be
given by Penelope Bender.
She is advisor to ARED, and
she'll be presenting on behalf
of the director of
AREAD Mamadou Amadou Ly
who is also here with us today.
>> Penelope Bender: Hello to
everyone and thank you so much.
On behalf of the entire
ARED team and network,
we would like to
thank the Library
of Congress for this award.
I'd also like to congratulate
all of our fellow honorees.
It's been so wonderful to
hear about everyone's work
and to know that there's a
whole group of people out there
in the world doing similar
thing, especially in these days
of COVID when we've
been so confined.
It's been wonderful.
So I am here to give this
presentation for ARED on behalf
of the director, since the
presentation is in English.
And this, I will go
ahead and get started.
ARED is an NGO that is
based in Senegal in Dakar.
And at this point, ARED
has 30 years of experience
in literacy programs and
African language publishing
for children, youth and adults
in Senegal and across the Sahel.
ARED has developed materials
in many languages of the Sahel
and many times materials
that were not available
before in these languages.
Next slide.
So this is the ARED team,
and again, ARED focuses
on using languages
that learners know.
For those of you
who are not familiar
with the West African context,
the former French colonies
of West Africa and Central
Africa still tend to use French
as an official language and
the language of schooling.
And that makes it very difficult
for children, families,
to access education
and to participate
in the formal economy.
So we know that starting
education in the language
that children know
makes it easier for them
to acquire a second
language later on.
So ARED focuses on first
teaching literacy and languages
that children know
and adults know.
And then later works
on bilingual education.
So training, publishing,
instruction
and action research are
all important activities
in ARED's work.
Next slide.
So the beneficiaries are in
Senegal and across the Sahel.
ARED works through
a large network
of community organizations
and government institutions
to develop community-led
programs in a variety
of countries and languages.
I would say that the most
important development recently
in ARED's work has been early
childhood literacy with a focus
on using science-based
evidence-based approaches
to reading.
So that work has grown
from very small programs
that were based mainly
in Senegal
to other countries
in the region.
Next slide.
So ARED works on several
different programs.
Probably their most important
program now is called
Bilingualism in Real Time.
So there's been a lot of
debate about the best way
to teach children
who need to learn
in two languages
in primary school.
Often for political reasons,
sometimes for economic reasons.
But in primary school
primarily for political reasons.
So ARED made a strategic
decision to introduce French
at the same time as
beginning instruction
in children's home languages.
So literacy instruction
starts in the home language.
Oral language development
is done in French.
And the two come together so
that children learn to read
and write in both languages
by the end of primary school.
So to go along with this, ARED
has developed a large number
of materials, textbooks,
teachers' guides,
supplementary storybooks in many
Senegalese languages for use
in the formal education system.
So this is a large scale public
education program as well
as the community activities
that ARED does more
with adolescents and adults.
So there's this large
scale implementation now
in three Senegalese
languages and French.
It's expanding to six Senegalese
languages, and the Ministry
of Education has decided
to take it to scale
to all schools in Senegal.
So ARED continues to
work with other countries
and programs in the region.
And most recently, that has
been working on a program
that integrates literacy
instruction and nutrition
for communities in Mauritania,
which is Senegal's
neighbor to the north.
Next slide.
So in terms of outcomes
and impact,
I think the biggest impact
that ARED has had has been
in the publishing world
over the last 30 years.
You can see on the
slide pictures of many
of their resources that
ARED has developed,
and I can't emphasize enough
how innovative this has been.
I had never seen a
veterinary dictionary
in Pular, for example.
Pular is a language
that is spoken
across Western Central Africa
by millions of herders,
people who raise livestock.
And ARED produced a veterinary
dictionary for these herders,
you know, in their own language.
So that has been significant.
They've printed and
distributed hundreds
of thousands of these materials.
So over the last few years,
there's really been a focus
on this bilingual program
for the early grades.
And we've seen that bilingual
classes have improved learning
outcomes by a very
significant amount.
This data is back from 2018.
It takes a little while for
the exam data to come out,
but you can see that the pass
rate went from 43% of students
who were only taught in French
to almost 65% for students
who were taught in their
home language and French.
And this exam is
given in French.
So this just shows once
again that children who start
in their home language
are more easily able
to acquire a second language
than students who start
in that second language.
So Senegal, as I said, is
now rolling out that program
in all schools in six
Senegalese languages and French.
And of course, because
Senegal is seen as a leader
in the region, we're seeing
a lot of follow on impact
from that in other, in
the neighboring countries
who have been using French
and are now working more
on bilingual education.
So thank you, and I'd be
glad to, with Mamadou,
answer any questions that
you might have during
the discussion.
>> Mamadou Amadou Ly: Thank you.
Nothing to add.
Thank you.
>> Kaleena Black: Wonderful.
Thank you, Penelope,
and thank you Mamadou.
We're so glad that you
are both here with us.
And thank you to all
of the presenters
for sharing a bit more
about your organizations
and the wonderful
work that you do.
We're looking forward
to the discussion.
And so with that, I'm
really happy to pass things
over to our moderator,
Dr. Gholdy Muhammad,
for our panel discussion.
Gholdy.
>> Dr. Gholdy Muhammad:
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
This was such a beautiful
display
of genius, of excellence.
I want to extend my welcome to
the panelists and to the guests,
and thank you, presenters, for
sharing such incredible work
from your organizations
around the world.
I will move to ask you
some specific questions
around culturally
relevant literacy.
And I invite you to respond
if you feel so moved,
but also engage in some warm
and spirited conversation
among each other,
because I think there are so
many just incredible connections
between your organizations'
work.
And I also invite our guests
to add to the chat any joyful,
honest and loving reactions
into the chat as the guests,
as our panelists are discussing.
So in my own work, I talk
about five specific areas
of culturally responsive
literacy.
And those are identity, skills,
intellectualism,
criticality and joy.
I want to start with joy.
Because I heard joy
being threaded,
and I felt joy being
threaded throughout your work.
Joy is something that is rarely
taught, assessed, centered,
when education is
at the forefront.
Yet we know the purpose of
education is indeed joy.
I feel like joy is necessary.
It invites children into beauty,
aesthetics and fulfillment
in teaching and learning.
So I would first like to
invite the panelists to respond
to the question of please
share any of your work
and how it offers
joy to the world.
And what joyful inspirations
keep you doing this necessary
work for children
and for our families?
And whoever like to
start first can begin.
>> Dorothy Dyer: Okay, I'm
happy to start with FunDza.
I think that's lovely, and I
think, I think for us, it's,
our readers are going
through a really hard time.
Young adults in South
Africa, there's poverty,
there's unemployment,
there's tough times.
And I think, and yet people
find meaning and find hope
in their everyday lives.
And they've got their
friendships
and their relationships.
And I think stories, stories
and reading can offer hope.
And I think, and
prospect of change,
even if it's not all
the joy all the time.
And I think that we get a strong
feeling from many of our readers
that what stories can offer and
possibly this is more negative
than just, you know, this is not
joy but can offer alternatives.
Can offer things can be
different, I can be different.
Life can be different.
And that's a very
powerful belief.
And we see that with
many of our readers
that that is what they identify
as the impact of reading stories
about people like themselves.
About the world that
they engage with.
And that that's, that
can be transformative.
And yes, and joy can be
related to justice and agency.
And I think that's a very
powerful, powerful of literacy
of both, of the kind of literacy
that we wanted to focus on.
And I think further work
brings joy to me as working
at FunDza is seeing the kind
of responses from young people.
Seeing the impact that the
stories and that writing
and expressing themselves
and the humor that the story,
that our young writers express
as well in these difficult time,
that is the most exciting thing
for us is to see the impact
that we are having through
the comments of our readers
and the fact that
they are finding hope
in quite difficult times.
>> Dr. Gholdy Muhammad:
Thank you.
Others.
>> Dr. Anasthasie
Liberiste-Osirus: I can go.
Well for us, working in Haiti is
similar context to South Africa.
Low literacy rate, political
unrest, crime, poverty.
And I think what really brings
joy to our work in, to myself,
creating some of the
materials, is we have,
it's called [foreign language]
which is morning meeting.
And it allows our students to
come together in the morning
and focus on social,
emotional, overarching theme.
And the kids have the
opportunity at that time to kind
of talk about what's happening
at home or what's happening
around them and kind of
shared their thoughts,
and they're supported
by not only the teacher
but also their classmates.
And from the beginning
of the program to now,
it's just the way the students
communicate in the classroom.
The way they communicate,
support each other
in the classroom.
How they interact with
their parents at home.
You can totally see
a difference.
But just based on
their interaction,
the program has books that
we also created that talked
about some of the main
issues that children face
from their perspective.
We have two characters
named Atna [phonetic]
and Tega [phonetic], and
there's political unrest.
Their parents are
looking for work.
And it just gives the kids a
perspective that's, you know,
I'm reading this book, and
I can connect to the book.
And I have the opportunity
to share my feelings
about what's happening
in the world around me
with my fellow students and
teachers and things like that.
So I think that alone brings me
joy when I see videos where I go
to the schools and I see
the kids are just engaged
in that morning meeting,
which before definitely
would not have happened.
So that definitely brings
myself joy, and it's great
to see the kids' interaction.
>> Penelope Bender:
I'll jump in.
So Mamadou and I talked a bit
about these questions
before the panel.
And so I'm going to look at one
of the responses that he sent.
And then I'm going to
talk just a little bit
about my experience as well.
So Mamadou wrote about
the parents and the way
in which this work allows
parents and children to connect.
You know, it's hard
to over-emphasize how schooling
has been used as an instrument
of separation in some
of the former colonial
countries in Africa.
So schooling has always
been in a foreign language.
It's had a curriculum that
parents couldn't understand.
And it was really designed
to teach children French
and to have them leave their
communities and go to the city,
enter the formal
economy and leave.
So these programs and languages
that families understand allow
parents for the first time
to participate in their
children's education
and to communicate with
their children's teachers.
And to really feel, you
know, this has impact
on people's self-esteem
and how they feel
about their own identity
and how they feel
about their own culture.
So for the first time,
parents and families are seeing
that culture valued at school.
So what Mamadou wrote exactly
is that when my children read
in the national languages,
I listen, and I understand.
I can help them.
I can explain.
I can support them, and I can
reinforce what the teacher
is teaching.
And the children are being
reinforced in their own language
and their own culture.
So that, seeing that, after
seeing so many classrooms
in French and so many classrooms
where children were learning
nothing, seeing that kind
of bringing people together
and reinforcing people's
identity has kept me working
in bilingual education
for so long
and is a really important part
of the work that ARED has done.
For me, you know, children come
to school full of knowledge,
full of language,
full of excitement.
And when they enter their
classroom and they're greeted
in a language they
don't understand
and they don't understand
their instruction
and they cannot connect
with their teacher,
it's a completely
different educational climate
from when they're
greeted in their language,
in their culture, with a
teacher who knows them.
And they're able to learn.
You know, they're able to learn.
They're able to discover
the joy of reading
and the joy of discovery.
New knowledge.
And then they learn
new languages
as well if they need to.
So that brings me joy,
and that's kept us
going all this time.
I have a colleague in Mali
who works on bilingual.
He says sometimes we're
on the crest of the wave.
Sometimes we're in the trough.
But we keep rolling
in regardless
of all the opposition
that we face.
Thank you.
>> Chiara Collette:
I can go next.
I think one of the
challenges we have
with our programming is just
that we are here in the States.
We're not in Tonga.
And so we don't often
get to see the impacts
that these programs are making
or what's happening
in the classroom.
But in 2018, my husband and the
cofounder of Friends of Tonga,
we were able to go back to Tonga
and be in one of the classrooms
to give them their pen pal
letters from the United States.
And seeing the joy on those
students' faces of the,
just the excitement of
especially for a country
where they don't really think
that much of the world knows
about where Tonga is or knows
who they are or what's
happening.
That there's these students
from America who are writing
to their Tongan friends
and want to hear
about their lives
and their culture.
And I think that's really an
important component outside
of simply the literacy
part of it
and the meaningful
writing practice.
It's really allowing these
students to feel seen
in both ways and to be able
to share the Tongan culture,
which is not very well
known, with the rest
of the world in a small way.
>> Dr. Gholdy Muhammad:
Yes, thank you for that.
You know, it is an audience
that please feel free
to join the chat on
joy inside the chat.
Why is joy so important
of education?
It feels like it's our
beginning, middle and end
for our children, our
teachers, our families.
That's what I kept hearing
throughout you all's responses.
Let's shift to the
centering of, and the roots,
of culturally relevant literacy.
Which was really developed
by studying Black
historical education.
And so to our panelists,
how does your work relate
to Black historical excellence
and the centering of Black
and Brown, the brilliance
of Black and Brown children.
Helping to disrupt
any kind of deficit,
false or incomplete
narratives of their lives.
We know that people don't always
start their stories with genus
but with failure or
struggle or deficit things.
So how does your work relate
to Black historical excellence
and this recentering of Black
genius and Brown genius?
>> Penelope Bender: I can
start with what Mamadou shared
in writing about this question.
So he wrote about how their
work in national languages
in Senegal was strongly
influenced by the fight
for identity of Black
Mauritanians.
I don't know if many
of you are aware,
but Mauritania has a mixed
population, as do many countries
in the upper Sahel of
Black Africans and Arab,
Africans of Arab descent.
So their work was strongly
influenced by this conflict.
And this idea that Arab
is the language of Islam
and the culture of Islam,
and that Black Africans
did not have a place
with their languages
and their culture.
So he writes that the
conflicts between Senegal
and Mauritania ended up
with many people moving
from Mauritania, many Black
Africans moving towards Senegal.
And that really strengthened
the work that they were doing
on African languages,
Black African languages
on both sides of the border.
Mamadou, I don't know if
you want to add anything.
>> Mamadou Amadou Ly: No
[ Foreign Language ]
>> Penelope Bender: Okay.
So he's saying that it
was this racist conflict
between what he's calling Black
Maurs and White Maurs that led
to this push for the Black
Mauritanian identity.
>> Dorothy Dyer: I can go.
I think for us it's, I
mean what I was talking
about is not even just
[inaudible] but just
for young people
to see themselves
in a book was powerful enough.
Not as characters as
people who wrote the story.
And that already shifted,
shifted their own feeling of,
shifted, it shifts, if you
recognize yourself in a book,
you've seen, you
heard, you're not alone.
And then it, and
then once you can,
that what we also do is we have
series on inspiring tomorrow.
We had a series on also, focused
particularly on South Africans,
but on people who were doing
quite extraordinary things.
Ordinary-ish people who were
doing extraordinary things.
And kind of role models who had
overcome obstacles and were,
and had, were, could
have been a skateboarder,
we have had a skateboarder,
doctor, artists, teachers,
people who studied later
in life to become teachers.
And a lot of the responses,
again, show the inspiration
that when young people are
reading about other Black people
who have had similar
obstacles and challenges
and have overcome them and
have succeeded and thrived.
It can, it's very,
it's inspiring too.
And we also have
series, we have,
our initial focus
was on fiction.
But we also have blog series
where we're looking at,
we look at historical incidence,
and we look at historical events
in Southern African history.
Slavery, the history of
Africa, well, that's very broad,
but see parts of the little
stories from the history
of Africa to challenge
the curriculum
of what learners are
learning at school.
At the moment we're
just featuring,
we've got these fantastic books
that have just been published,
a woman who shaped the
world, a Black African woman.
And so we're focusing on that as
one of our blog posts as well.
Because that is our world.
I mean for our young readers,
we need, we are focusing
on African heroes,
African role models
that they themselves
can aspire to.
>> Dr. Anasthasie
Liberiste-Osirus:
I can add to that.
Just echoing what was said
before with representation.
But in the, in Haiti, Haiti was
the world's first Black republic
and the first in the
[inaudible] in states that threw
out the French colony in 1804.
But when you go to Haiti,
you're unable to find,
it's very difficult to find
books that had characters
that look like the children in
Haiti because of the language,
focus on French instead of the
mother tongue Haitian Creole.
And a lot of, you know,
colonialism and in the books
and in the classrooms
focused on French.
So I think our main goal was to
provide books in Haitian Creole
as well as characters
in the books that look
like our children that dealt
with the same situations
as our children and conquered
those issues in whatever way.
So we found that the
children enjoyed reading
in Haitian Creole.
They enjoy seeing characters
that they can connect with
and be able to find inspiration
from some of the victories
that the characters are able
to overcome in our books.
So it's basically almost
the same thing here
in Haiti as well.
But in our program, we make
sure that our materials are
in Haitian Creole, our mother
tongue, and also there's a lot
of representation,
whether it's women
that are doing amazing
things in our books,
children in wheelchairs,
children that are darker
complexion, a darker complexion.
That are, or just as
successful as others.
We make that our priority in
the resources and the materials
that we provide in
the classroom.
>> Chiara College: Okay.
Then I think for
Friends of Tonga,
everything we do is
ground truth and focus
from a Tongan culture
perspective.
We have, we're very
intentional at what we,
what programming we include.
We make sure it is run by
Tongan teachers and the Ministry
of Education, because obviously,
they know better what literacy
is going to be effective
in their country than we do.
And so I think we
really try to be able
to take all these different
perspectives and culture,
cultural aspects in
mind in our programming.
It's something we would
like to grow further
in our video resource library
with getting more South Pacific
books and resources on there.
But I think much of
our programming is
within partnership with
Tongan organizations.
We are a collaborative force.
We're in partnership
with Tonga, with Tongans,
and with Tongan organizations
so that we're able
to promote these opinions,
the narrative that's coming
out of Tonga and be able to
really share these experiences
with the rest of the world.
Like I think I've
said this a lot.
Not a lot of people
know about Tonga.
And so I think really being able
to share Tongan perspectives
and just getting the word
out there so people know
about this small island nation
that is really being impacted
by climate change and really
having a challenging time right
now is important to
us and being able
to share those perspectives.
>> Dr. Gholdy Muhammad:
Thank you.
And I invite others in, audience
members to the chat to think
about the importance
of centering Black
and Brown genius
and joy as well.
Why is that important when the
world has not always centered
our brilliance?
Let's keep it going, you all.
These are great discussions,
great conversations.
You know, it's something that
was said around, you know,
the centering and resistance
of injustice and inequities.
I want to ask you all a
question around like resistance
and progress and successes.
Here in the States,
there's this resistance
against culturally
responsive pedagogies,
against anti-Black racism.
Against critical race theory and
equity and justice in learning.
So there's a feeling
for many of us
that there's still
so much to do.
Yet at the same time, is a
striving to sustain the progress
that many of us have
made around the teaching
of Black excellence,
the teaching
of culturally responsive
pedagogies.
The teaching of justice
and equity.
So based on your work
in education, nationally
and globally, where would
you say we've made incredible
progress, and what are
some areas that are still
in need of improvement?
And how does your very
purposeful work response
to these areas of need?
So as you're thinking
about this, please share
with us your successes
and your challenges?
>> Dr. Anasthasie
Liberiste-Osirus: I can start.
I think some of our success is
seeing a shift in, you know,
the academic part of it.
Students are excelling.
Their reading and
fluency are increasing
because of the program.
And I think some of the buy in,
some of the issues we still
have is getting parents
to understand that, you know,
reading in your first language,
the child is building off
of, it's receiving skills
and background knowledge in
order to build, you know,
in French and to learn French
and to be fluent
in French as well.
Sometimes the parents are
still hesitant about, you know,
our books or our materials
in the classroom and things
like that because to them,
they feel, they still feel
that French is what
their children need
in order to succeed.
And that Haitian Creole,
their mother tongue,
doesn't have value.
Though there's still that
struggle that we have to go back
and forth sometimes
is with the teacher,
sometimes is with the parents.
But I think a lot
of our programs
and initiatives was
trying to drive them,
some of the science
behind language
and language acquisition
and in showing in social
and emotional development
because they go hand
in hand [inaudible] they
go hand in hand in SCL.
And trying to teach them that,
you know, building these skills
in their mother tongue as well
as supporting these students
will lead to success.
So unfortunately, that's
something we still have to deal
with but, I think
that's, I think the gains
that we've achieved in that area
now compared to, you know, five,
six years ago is wonderful.
And I think if we keep going
in that direction, hopefully,
we can get more buy in and more
people to see the importance
of mother tongue literacy.
>> Penelope Bender: I'll
go ahead and jump in.
I think that globally we've
made a ton of progress
in developing thousands
of new titles and hundreds
of new languages and
making them accessible
through digital platforms.
So that's something
over the last decade
that we've worked hard on,
and we have really
made a ton of progress.
In Senegal, in particular,
ARED has shown that, you know,
improving instruction, improving
student learning outcomes is
really using national
languages, using languages
that students speak is
a prerequisite for that.
He's writing that there's
still a lot of work left to do
on the languages, on
developing materials.
Some languages still need
to have their orthographies
stabilized.
But when I think about, you
know, 15 years ago, Mamadou
and I had a memorable evening
cornering the ministry,
the Minister of Education
on a rooftop in the night
to get permission to start
the bilingual program.
Because we knew if
we didn't talk to him
that day we couldn't do it.
And then now we have this
national bilingual policy
in Senegal, so we really
have made a lot of progress.
But there's a ton of work to do.
And just as we heard
about Haiti, you know,
it's not a technical
issue anymore.
We've really refined
our technical arguments.
We've come up with a lot
of technical solutions.
It's a political argument.
It's convincing parents
and government officials
that their languages
and cultures have value
and that they need to
be used in education
to support their children.
So we're still fighting
that fight.
And any suggestions
about advocacy
or communications resources,
that's what we need.
It's a political problem
and not a technical problem
at this point.
Thank you.
>> Chiara Collette:
I'll have to --
>> Dorothy Dyer:
Chiara, you want to go?
>> Chiara Collette:
You can go next.
That's okay.
>> Dorothy Dyer: It's
fascinating hearing
about these other
language issues,
because I mean South Africa
faces similar challenges,
but we have come a long
way in various aspects.
We've definitely, I think,
we have a different system.
I mean this is not our
area of, FunDza focuses
on high school and young adults.
But for younger children,
they learn indigenous their
home language for three years
and then suddenly, miraculously
overnight, they know English.
And in grade four, every
subject is in English.
So there's a huge
systemic problem there.
And I think more and more
the government is recognizing
and people are recognizing
the importance
of development indigenous,
developing indigenous
languages beyond grade three
and also having a better
kind of bilingual program.
And so, and that's also
very interesting for us
in that we want to promote
indigenous languages,
and people are seeing
the worth of it too.
But the challenge in
indigenous languages is
that during a [inaudible]
Afrikaans,
which is an official
language here.
Had huge funding behind
it for dictionaries,
for literature development.
And so it's a strong language,
whereas the other languages,
the other nine languages
are not as, that they kind
of contestation around
dialect, contestation
around the correct
forms of words.
And so Itcan [phonetic]
translation and publishing
in those languages
can be difficult.
And there needs to be
money and research pumped
into those language as
there was in African.
So that did, because that is
our challenge, translations
and the correct dialect.
And the debates are on getting
it all right are difficult.
You know, that is
one of our challenges
in the indigenous languages.
What's also great to see there
over the last 10 or 11 years is
that reading for pleasure is
being increasingly recognized
in South Africa as
something that's important.
And so we were quite a learn
for it, you know, where we feel
like now we're a part of
a chorus, whereas before,
it felt like something that
was very much out of school
and was not part
of a school focus.
Another, the challenge linked to
that, though, although reading
for pleasure is being
more, more recognized
as something important
is the content.
You know, there's this, the
curriculum is quite [inaudible],
these, It's getting
the, it's balancing the,
especially if we're wanting
young people in schools
to use us, there's the
issues of, you know,
teen pregnancy is a big
problem in South Africa.
But how, what are, how
much can we talk about it?
How far can we go in
our stories if we want
to be used in schools.
So it's also balancing the kind
of potential conservatism
of the department.
Which you haven't actually
come across that much.
But, and also our young
people's own lived experiences,
the challenges, the
huge social issues
that they describe
in their own lives.
So those are some of the
challenges and developments
that we've had in our, in South
Africa and for FunDza itself.
>> Chiara Collette: Speaking
from a Tongan perspective,
or at least the perspective
in Tonga,
I think one of the big
challenges facing Tonga
or that they are focused
on as the Ministry
of Education is the focus on
early childhood education.
And I think this is something
that doesn't get
enough attention
in many places, including
the States.
And I think it also is something
that we don't necessarily
allocate the necessary
resources towards.
And Tonga has realized that
this is a gap in their education
and something that's needed.
And I think a huge success is
that it has become
a formalized part
of the education
system in Tonga.
And so as friends of
Tonga, we've been able
to support these initiatives
because although they would
like to have an early
childhood education center
or a kindergarten as they
would call it in each school,
they don't necessarily have
the infrastructure or the funds
to be able to build those
schools in each location.
And so that was something that
we were very excited to be able
to partner with, with our
partner organizations,
Schools for Children
of the World,
to be able to build the first
early childhood education center
that is cyclone and
earthquake resistant.
Because Tonga is also facing,
like the rest of the world,
climate change that is going
to impact those infrastructure
projects.
But hopefully, we'll be
able to provide these spaces
to allow the foundation for
early childhood education
and in structures that are
going to stay for a while.
So that's something that we feel
has been a big success for us
for the Ministry of
Education as well.
And something that we hope to
continue growing in the future.
>> Dr. Gholdy Muhammad:
Wonderful.
Wow, this has just been
such great discussion
and conversation
around what we're doing,
what's needed moving forward.
And so we want to make
sure we have enough time
for some rich engagement
with our audience,
so I'll ask one more question.
But it has two parts.
I would love for you to briefly
share some forward thinking
and freedom dreaming ideas.
In other words, what is next
for you and your organization
as we're still navigating
a pandemic, social unrest,
sometimes uneven
times and the need
for culturally relevancy
and joy.
What is next for you?
That's the first part.
The second part to this
question, can you leave us,
the audience, and I know
the audience are part
of organizations, universities,
schools, communities, parents.
Can you leave us with one
takeaway, one strategy, resource
or support, that we can
consider to make sure
that we are also successful with
culturally relevant approaches?
And I'll put this in the
chat so we'll have this.
>> Dr. Anasthasie
Liberiste-Osirus: I can start.
I think for resources,
research, samples of our books,
that it's all open access.
You can pull any of
that information,
any of those resources and
materials and download them
and use them in your
context if need be.
But I think one of our main
focus is to continue to build
that ecosystem on those
three pillars that I talked
about in Haiti [foreign
language] building off
of the church, the
home and the school.
And making sure that we are
able, as an organization,
is able to provide the
support that is needed based
on the input from the
community to help those areas,
how do you say it
in English, thrive.
Sorry. To make sure that those
areas knows, those areas thrive.
So I think that's something
that we continuously do.
We try to be as innovative
as possible.
Try to create programs
where, you know,
the parents come and volunteer.
Or if a child participates
in a writing competition,
they can get their
tuition paid for.
A teacher can get the support
that they need in the classroom
in terms of materials
and things like that.
We're trying to always
thinking outside of the box
and using our system
to make sure
that these programs
are relevant,
are focused on our context
and that it can be replicated.
Even if one day we're not
longer able to service Haiti,
that Haiti can continue
to thrive using our
resources on their own.
So it's a continual exploration
of what we can do to help
to support those
systems in Haiti.
>> Penelope Bender: So
for ARED in the future,
there's the new large USA
ID-funded program in Senegal
that is going to do work in
these additional languages
and also do more work
in early childhood.
So ARED will be one of
the implementors working
on the DAT [phonetic].
Mamadou is writing that all day
today he spent with the Ministry
of Education working on
taking this program to scale,
developing the plans
and programming
to take the program to scale.
In addition, we're working
on a COVID response program
to catch children up.
The pandemic closed
schools in Senegal
as in almost every
other country.
And children have
fallen quite far behind,
even though they were,
their learning levels were
really low to start with.
So we're working on a tutoring
program to pull children
who are the farthest below
the benchmarks for their grade
and giving them more
individual attention
with that tutoring program.
We're hoping to expand that
to be a two-strand model,
to bring in some
revenue for ARED.
As you know who run
small organizations,
funding is always problematic.
And so that's a big
question for how
to spread the revolution is how
to find the revenue to do that.
Just getting down to the
very practical level.
In terms of resources, I
posted some links to some
of the global digital
libraries that have the titles.
I would encourage everyone to
take a look at that, at those.
And Story Weaver, and African
storybook both have software
that's also opensource
to help people translate,
adapt and make their own books.
So we created this when I was
at USAID, and it's been a part
of helping community members,
people who have stories
but aren't used to writing them.
People who have stories that
are used to writing them
but aren't used to writing
them in a digital format
that will help them
get published
in today's publishing world.
To get all of those
stories down and to use them
for children all over the world.
Thank you.
>> Dorothy Dyer: I think
for us, as I mentioned
in our presentation,
what we have just done
which has been really
exciting is to have a platform
where young people can
publish their own work almost
immediately on our platform.
Before they used to email
it, and it used to take,
it was quite time consuming
for stuff internally.
So now it's, so this is one
of our new exciting things
which was a pie in the
sky and is not a reality.
It's where young people can
actually send in their work,
and it gets, you know, they
kind of uploaded themselves,
and we just check and
moderate it and publish it.
So that was something
that we've just done,
which is really exciting.
And I think for us, our
new director is very much,
very keen on looking at more
what technology can offer us.
So audio clips so
people can listen
to stories as well as read them.
That they can download stories.
That they can let, the
spoken word becomes part of,
becomes part of what we offer.
So different kinds of
literacies but on our mobi site.
And then beyond our
mobi site too.
That as a youth that we kind
of are, that we, literacy or
and reading and writing
is something as very cool,
very exciting and engaging
and not something that's
just associated with school,
and we want to be part of
festivals and writing events
to kind of spread
the revolution,
as my colleague was saying.
And then I think I'm going
to put on the website
that was shared earlier
from us is fundza.cursor,
which is the website that gives
a background about organization.
But fundza.mobi is, is our
library on the cellphone.
And that has tons of South
African stories mainly.
Love, drama, crime,
drugs, but they are dealing
with issues that, you know,
young people are facing,
jealousy, heartbreak,
that are universal.
And so I'm sure you will
find exciting stories
from a different place.
But that touch on things
everyone can relate to.
So I'm going to put
that in the chat.
And do have a look at what
fundza.mobi can offer.
I think there's, yeah, we've
read lots of American stories.
Now you can read some
South African ones.
>> Chiara Collette: Dorothy,
I'm excited to look into that
and see how it might help us
with our video resource library
and see what we can
possibly collaborate on.
I think for Friends of
Tonga, Tonga is definitely
in a crisis situation as
we speak after the volcano
and subsequent tsunami.
There's still a lot of relief
efforts that are going out,
and life in Tonga is really just
trying to get back to a state
of relative normal as we try
to have more access to food
and water and crops
and all of that.
And with that, there's
also the subsequent crisis
of Tonga was one of
the only countries
that did not have
any cases of COVID.
Unfortunately, now with
relief services coming
to Tonga, they do.
And so COVID is spreading
through the islands.
They are currently on lockdown.
And so it will be also kind of a
two, three-fold support to Tonga
and relief efforts for being
able to provide food and water
and those wash services.
But also being able
to support education
in potentially our video library
being shared with students
so they have resources while
they're home during lockdown.
Being able to support
the Ministry of Education
in whatever way we can in
supplying those resources.
And also supporting the Ministry
of Education as they try
to rebuild some of the schools
that were destroyed
by the tsunami.
So there is definitely
a lot going on there.
And I will put the
link in the chat
to our video read aloud library.
And that's something that if
anyone is interested might be a
replicable model for some of
your organizations as well.
>> Kaleena Black: I will just
pop back on to thank everyone.
Thank you, Gholdy.
I don't know if you wanted
to say one last word before
we open it up to the audience.
>> Dr. Gholdy Muhammad: Well
I just want to say thank you
for sharing, you know,
for doing the work.
Sometimes this work isn't easy.
It isn't, it calls for a certain
kind of heart of a certain kind
of humanity to keep waking
up every day and striving
for something bigger than us.
And so I just want to say in
gratitude to the presenters
and the work that
you all are doing
through your various
organizations, thank you.
It is this kind of work that
gives me peace at night knowing
that we are striving every day
to make the world
better through literacy.
So thank you.
And now I'll pass it back
over so we can have some time
for some audience Q
and A and discussion.
>> Kaleena Black: Thank you.
Thank you again, Gholdy and
Chiara, Mamadou, Dorothy,
Penelope and Anasthasie
for this, you know,
really enlightening,
multifaceted conversation.
I definitely appreciated
the centering of joy even
as we were all talking about
the challenges and difficulties
of the work and the
obstacles that you face.
Just centering that
reminder of the why the work
that you do matters
and why it's important.
So if anyone has any questions,
feel free to put
them in the chat.
Similarly, panelists, if
you have any questions
for each other, you
can feel free
to put those in the
chat as well.
So far, I only saw one
question from an audience member
in addition to many
comments talking about,
because expressing gratitude
again for that centering of joy,
talking about sort of the
role that schools can play in,
I think someone said
modeling joy,
which was a really
interesting way to put it.
So the only question that
I saw for all of you is
if there are resources
that present positive
cross-cultural families.
The person meant parents
from two different countries.
So if you have any suggestions,
you can go off mute,
or you can put those
in the chat.
But if anyone has any
thoughts, feel free to share.
And if not, I will also ask my
colleague to put in everyone's,
the links to everyone's
organizations so that
if folks do have other
questions or, you know,
want to revisit some
of the finer points
of the presentations
that you made or the work
that your organizations do,
they know how to get in touch
and how to learn more.
I was trying to see if I had
any other questions here.
Well, if anything comes to you,
do feel free to get in touch
with us or with the
organizations.
And so with that, I just wanted
to express gratitude again
to our wonderful moderator and
panelists for their enthusiasm,
participation and for all
the work that they do,
their organizations do.
And thank you to our audience
for your participation today
and for all the contributions
that you've made in the chat
and the way you contributed
to our conversations.
A couple of just links
we're going to put
in the chat are just
to learn more
about the Literacy
Awards Program.
We'll put a link to the website.
And then we'll also put a link
to where you can find the
recording of this webinar
and the three ones
that preceded it.
And again, on screen
you can see the links
to the organizations
that presented today.
So with that, thank
you again so much.
We look forward to hopefully
seeing you at a future webinar.
This is the last
webinar of this series,
but we hope that you
will revisit the ones
that we presented in
the months before.
And we hope to see you
at a future program
from the Library of Congress.
With that, have a
great rest of the day.