Green Party: Literacy is Vital In Empowering People of All Ages.

Aziz Mogaji, a Green Party candidate for Heaton ward, writes in today’s Havering Daily about the importance of literacy in empowering people of all ages. He argues that we must protect public libraries and provide quality education.

Ever since I was a little boy, my parents have always impressed upon me the importance of being literate. As they said, “knowledge is power”. With this mentality, my parents always enrolled me in the library’s summer reading challenges throughout primary school. I grew up engaging with various books, which has enabled me to express myself to different people from different backgrounds. I am fortunate not only for my parents and their focus on education, but also that I was and continue to be a part of a community that funds libraries for kids to attend. These reading challenges allowed me to engage with the community as I attended the library and met other children who were also doing reading challenges. This is why funding these public spaces is so important. It allows for the engagement of activities for children and adults alike. A space where people can discuss their interests, take part in clubs and learn something new with a neighbour.

Being literate is, at least in my opinion, something that has historically been taken for granted. Especially by adults. It is not only for children to practice their literacy skills, but public funding should be focused towards ensuring adults are also sufficiently literate. There are various advantages to being literate that feed into the strength of a community. Being literate allows an individual to read information for themselves, and allows them to draw their own conclusions rather than be read to. A person who can read and read to a good standard is less likely to be subject to propaganda or misinformation from any political party, whether left or right of the political spectrum. Everyone should be empowered to make their own decisions, to communicate their thoughts so that they can be heard, and that often requires literacy. No one should be told what to think or say, and being literate prevents that, especially having media literacy in this digital age`.

Literacy also allows us all to overcome the limitations that come with being an individual from a specific background. I am an ethnically Nigerian man who grew up in Havering, but I cannot immediately relate to an Asian Sikh man who immigrated to London as an adult or a white woman who grew up and lived in a remote village. However, literacy allows me to engage with reading materials from a whole host of perspectives. It may not be the same as living someone else’s life, but it can do a lot of the heavy lifting. It allows for a more open mind, so that when I do meet people like this from different backgrounds, I am more receptive to their lives and stories. We often fear what we do not know, and without being literate, what we know is a lot more limited and by extension, we are a lot more scared of strangers. This innate fear of the unknown causes friction in community building. 

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