Welcome to SI Midland Chase

Our President's Message

“Literacy opens the door to life”

My first reason for my choice is quite simple: the breadth of the subject ensures that any Club looking for a new impetus for their Programme Action, the heart of the Soroptimist movement, will easily find a way to further literacy whether for young people or for adults in the UK or within other parts of the Federation.

My second reason is equally simple and totally personal: I cannot imagine a life without books. Reading, since early childhood when my parents read to me for hours, has brought me solace, instruction, pure escape and my most direct route to happiness. To be deprived of the opportunity of delving into a book whether a recent biography or a timeless Classic seems to me to impoverish one’s life experience. It is now accepted that there are clear links between a passion for reading for pleasure and academic achievement.

Literacy is vital to each young person in today’s world in a very practical way. In the Western world it is becoming increasingly difficult to find employment without the ability to use a computer, download information, to fill out forms. Without literacy you are unable to read timetables, check out the Internet, use e-mail or even check the ingredients on a ready meal, never mind sort out how to record your favourite TV programme, though most of us struggle with that!

It is therefore concerning to read statistics in the recent reports stating that 4 in 10 pupils failed to master basic subjects to the expected level for their age group last year. Whether the numbers were correct or massaged for a political purpose, it is clear that literacy remains a problem for many young people in the UK. There are many projects already ongoing in this area just type “literacy” into your favourite search engine to find out more about them.

In developing countries we know that it is still more likely that boys are educated and girls stay at home: many projects are already working to ensure the education of girls. It has been shown that once educated, a woman will ensure that her daughters too will have a higher expectancy and that family health improves; literacy has far reaching effects in developing countries.

Heather Stern

Our Officers

These club pages were last updated on: 29 April 2008
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