Literacy and functional literacy

There are many definitions and understandings of literacy, at Nishi we use the UNESCO / Unicef definitions:

a) Literate: someone "who can with understanding both read and write a short simple statement on his or her everyday life."

b) Functionally literate: someone "who can engage in all those activities in which literacy is required for effective functioning of his or her group and community and also for enabling him or her to continue to use reading, writing and calculation for their own and their community's development." 

(See EFA 2006 monitoring report – table 6.2)

In addition to print or text literacy there are other “literacies” such as poster, political, financial, health and even phone literacy. 

Our work focusses on print literacy.  This is valuable in itself, is critical to individual's wellbeing, social and economic development and is often an important key to other literacies.