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News by FFWD Staff Oxfam Canada and its Calgary branch are participating in an international campaign to raise awareness about illiteracy. The organization is drawing attention to the plight of the 125 million children in the world who can’t read and have no access to school or formal education of any kind, as well as another 150 million who will leave before they complete their fourth year of school. There are also 800 million adults worldwide who are illiterate. In 1990 at the Education for All conference, world leaders committed themselves to universal basic education for all by 2000, but Oxfam says they have failed. A summit to be held in Dakar, Senegal in April this year will re-address those commitments and set a new date of 2015. However, Oxfam says the framework to be set out by the conference is unworkable, and has instead put forward its own Global Action Plan (GAP) calling for the mobilization of resources and energies needed to make high-quality universal primary education a reality by 2015. GAP would build on existing structures and provide a strategic framework for co-ordinating national and international education planning. Oxfam has concluded that an additional $8 billion a year is needed to reach the target date for eradicating illiteracy – equivalent to four days of world military spending, or less than half of what North American parents spend on toys for their children per year. As part of the awareness campaign, the Calgary branch of Oxfam has organized a week of author readings starting April 3 (see Bookends or listings) and a band night at the Wildwood pub on April 8. So far, response has been so good that organizers are considering opening a local Oxfam office. For more information, visit the Web site at www.oxfam.ca

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