William Chemno’s educational journey in Toronto began in Parkdale, a small but bustling neighbourhood in the city’s west end. Originally from Kenya, the 32-year-old had his sights set on a post-secondary education. Chemno knew that in order to be successful in a post-secondary program, he needed to improve his reading, writing, and math skills. So, he joined Parkdale Project Read’s Academic Upgrading Program, a community-based adult literacy program. Immediately, he got to work: He learned how to write a proper essay, improved his grammar and punctuation in writing, and built confidence in his reading abilities.

The program “is where I got my foundation,” he says. “They prepared me to go to college.”

Chemno is one of many Canadians working to improve his literacy in part to achieve greater academic and personal goals. Still, there is little awareness of just how important adult literacy is. As an adult literacy practitioner who works with learners in community-based programs in Toronto, I know that it is an often-overlooked issue that’s rarely discussed in larger policy discourse. Decision-makers and elected officials at the federal, provincial, and municipal levels still haven’t fully grasped the importance of ensuring that all Canadians are giving the support and resources to increase their literacy and numeracy skills.

If adult learners do not have basic literacy and numeracy skills, everyday tasks become difficult: It becomes harder to apply for jobs, read to their children and grandchildren, complete government forms, vote, and access social supports. The implications of adults with low literacy skills have significant social and economic effects.

Learning to read, write, and do math in the dominant language of the society that you live in is practising how to communicate. It involves building skills, perspectives, and knowledge face-to-face and electronically that is relevant and meaningful. For the many adults working to improve their literacy and numeracy skills, the issue can no longer be invisible.

***

Adult literacy in Canada has a long and rich history. Beginning in the 1800s, the Mechanics’ Institutes in Ontario, Quebec, and Nova Scotia provided information and learning opportunities to labourers exclusively. In 1893, the National Council of Women, an advocacy organization based in Ottawa whose mission was to improve the conditions of women and families, was founded. Home and school associations expanded, public lectures were given in many communities, and educational programs were organized by religious and other groups. By 1899, Frontier College was established and began providing literacy support to individuals in remote communities, who worked in industries such as mining and logging, and eventually extended its educational services to people in prisons, factories, migrant farms, rural populations, domestic workers, and immigrants, as well as those experiencing homelessness.

On the international stage, Canadians made contributions to organizations such as the International Congress of University Adult Education and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). During the UNESCO conference in Tokyo in 1972, and under the leadership of a Canadian adult educator, James Robbins Kidd, in 1973, the International Council for Adult Education (ICAE) was established.

Today, there remains a lack of understanding and awareness of adult literacy and its role in being active and engaged in a democratic society. UNESCO defines literacy as a right and takes a humanistic approach to education, with a central concern for inclusiveness that does not marginalize. Through this lens, consider Brazilian educator and philosopher Paulo Freire’s take on learning: He believed that education and politics are connected, suggesting that the acts of teaching and learning are political acts in and of themselves. Therefore, when we examine adult literacy and its importance in Canada on a systemic level, it is a political act.

Under Stephen Harper’s Conservative government, adult literacy education became increasingly political across the country after a drastic policy shift. Many adult literacy programs experienced funding cuts, and adult literacy was no longer defined as a means of life-long learning and inclusiveness but as “essential skills.” In 2007, the Office of Literacy and Essential Skills (OLES) was established to support adult Canadians in improving their essential skills to enter and succeed in the job market. Federal policies made the assumption that adult learners who were working on improving their literacy skills did so solely for employment purposes. As a result of this federal shift, provinces began to follow suit. Funded by the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities in Ontario under the Employment Ontario model, the Ontario Adult Literacy Curriculum Framework, for instance, became heavily focused on employment. As a result, those seeking literacy skills for anything other than employment-specific reasons became furthered marginalized.

To better understand the issue, I reached out to other literacy workers, like me, across the country who are working to improve access to literacy education and increase its visibility. The many practitioners that I spoke to have been working in the field for decades and continue to be deeply committed and passionate about their work. The consensus: There’s still plenty of work to be done.

“I thought we were moving toward better research, a more evidence-based approach to adult literacy. But that was all eliminated with the [Harper] cuts and it sent a very strong message about the national effort to address literacy,” says Deanna Allen Champagne, former executive director of Laubach Literacy in New Brunswick. “It wasn’t important enough to maintain that kind of federal commitment.” Terri Peters, a professional development specialist with Calgary Learns, agrees: “The changes in government policy had a profound effect on adult literacy policy, which further marginalized and isolated the field.” These policy changes, Allen Champagne adds, ignore the larger issue of adult literacy outside of a workplace environment, minimizing its overall visibility in the country.

Jenny Horsman, a community-based researcher and educator based in Toronto with a focus on violence, trauma, and learning, echoes this sentiment. “We have shifted away from literacy [and its] relationship to text, and moved toward this bizarre focus on essential skills,” she says. “Excluding the skills the government doesn’t name as essential for work, such as the impact of violence on learning, removes funding for vital learning and teaching.” Important skills, such as public speaking or a better understanding of digital technology, are also excluded.

In the end, practitioners say, the issue of adult literacy has become tangled in a larger fight—one of decentralization of social programs in the government, of a focus not on education but of employability—that can only stand to hurt those yearning to learn.

***

For those working to make adult literacy a more visible issue, the fight starts with a better understanding of literacy in general. “‘Being literate’ is not well understood by most people,” Allen Champagne says. “We live in a society where we depend on literacy skills [so] there is an assumption that because we have access to public education people can easily acquire literacy skills.”

Peters agrees, noting that most of her friends and family outside of the industry fail to grasp what exactly issues of literacy—like the change in definition and skills training by the Harper’s government—in Canada are, and how these issues apply to everyday scenarios. Many practitioners say this is in part due to the fact that we ignore how learners themselves define literacy. “Think of the marketing and promotion of literacy programs, done by the funders… and this may or may not engage potential learners,” Allen Champagne says. “But if the definition came from learners, it would be different.”

Jayne Hunter, executive director of Literacy Nova Scotia adds: “We try to not see low literacy as a negative even though it is talked about as a deficit, but we talk about it as a tool for empowerment.”

Based on her 20 years in the literacy field, Margerit Roger, a consultant with Eupraxia Training in Winnipeg, says adult literacy should be viewed as a social justice issue. “A lack of access to literacy signals a loss of power and serves to marginalize—whether it’s an inability to read a medicine bottle, fill out a form to receive employment insurance, or the way someone struggling with literacy might be treated for their written communication.”

For Indigenous communities, this marginalization is especially potent, says Michelle Davis, executive director of the Ontario Native Literacy Coalition in Ohsweken near the Six Nations of the Grand River. Last year, when Literacy and Basic Skills (LBS) practitioners met in Toronto, most agreed there is still stigma to the word literacy.

“Because our students are the ones that the education system has failed, that stigma attached that comes with our programs comes into play and we’ve got to get away from that,” she says. Media coverage usually doesn’t help matters. Often, journalism about low literacy consists of human-interest stories that don’t take a critical look at the policies and people in power who have changed the discourse on the issue. “Adult literacy does not have public credence,” Peters says.

“When I try to talk about reading, writing, and numeracy, it seems harder to engage others in what it means to have literacy knowledge and skills gaps,” adds Berniece Gowan, a project manager with the Adult Literacy and Essential Skills Research Institute at Calgary’s Bow Valley College.

But some practitioners object to it being an invisible issue. “If we say adult literacy is invisible then it becomes invisible,” says Suzanne Symthe, associate professor in the Faculty of Education at Burnaby, B.C.’s Simon Fraser University. “Adult literacy work is everywhere. It is so entangled and embedded in everyday life.” To ignore this, she says, is to lose progress.

***

William Chemno’s journey from the Academic Upgrading Program to being a student at Centennial College is a testament of how programs similar to the one in Parkdale, in addition to community-based adult literacy programs that are supporting learners with various goals, are critical in supporting adult learners who seek a second chance at learning. And for Chemno, it is thanks to his persistence and dedication as well as the support and encouragement from staff, that he has been given that second chance.

Currently, Chemno is in his third semester at Centennial College, completing his diploma to become a registered practical nurse. Now, Chemno is giving back, providing support to those in the Project Read program who are looking to improve the literacy just like he was.

Regardless of shifts in policy or governmental changes, Allen Champagne says one thing remains true about adult literacy: “It creates access—to resources and supports, opportunities, a network and support system,” she says. “It presents a new perspective on the world around you and your place in it.”

Hugh McGuire, founder of Librivox, Iambik, Bite-size Edits, and PressBook.

Imagine Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness read by a woman with a girlish, high-pitched voice. How would it affect your interpretation of the text? What elements of the story would be heightened, and which ones muted? What effect can a reader have on a text? These are a few of the questions that arise when you sample one of the more than 3,700 audiobooks posted to LibriVox.

Inspired by open-source models like Project Gutenberg and Wikipedia, LibriVox was launched in 2005 by Hugh McGuire, an affable Montrealer with a background in mechanical engineering. Finding the selection of audiobooks on the slim side, McGuire bet that people would be willing to record audio versions of public-domain books, for free, simply to make them available to others.

He was right. LibriVox today boasts posts by 4,178 readers, of which the most prolific has posted 2,923 chapter recordings; the collection includes everything from Alfred Marshall’s Principles of Economics to Aristophanes’ Lysistrata. At the heart of the project is the belief that people are fascinated by transparency in cultural production, and that the public should have a hand in enriching the canon of available works.

With LibriVox now chugging along under its own steam, the 36-year-old McGuire is focusing on several new projects. Last October, he launched Iambik, which mines the talent in the LibriVox pool, matching some of those readers with titles submitted by more than 30 independent presses; the revenue-sharing model makes audiobook production more affordable, allowing for the creation of high-quality recordings of contemporary works. And this summer, McGuire will launch PressBooks, a WordPress-driven tool that will simplify the ebook production process for writers and publishers alike.

PressBooks users may benefit from the expertise of fans of another McGuire project, Bite-size Edits, a forum that “gameifies” the editorial process, allowing enthusiasts of the red pencil to earn points and prizes by editing the texts of books posted by publishers.

McGuire is the Canadian doyen of literary commons-based peer production. His projects enable public engagement in the preservation and dissemination of literary works, and show that, given the chance, there’s no shortage of material to share—and bookish volunteers who want to share it.

Illustration by Evan Munday.

On a cold mid-February afternoon under overcast skies, a school bell rings. The halls of Toronto’s Agnes Macphail Public School flood with children dressed in puffy jackets and schoolbags. Although a swift exodus befalls most schools at day’s end, Agnes Macphail still pulses with high-pitch chatter. Students linger in the foyer while others flock towards the school’s library. Amidst the rows of bookcases and computers, a group of students, ranging from grade six to eight, sit around tables as they talk animatedly and await the start of their book-club meeting.

The students burst into cheerful greetings as Diana Maliszewski, Agnes Macphail’s teacher-librarian, walks into the room. Dressed in a black cardigan, white dress shirt, and black pants, Maliszewski sits at the table amongst the intermediate students.

“So, which book are we going to talk about first?” Maliszewski asks. The children’s voices overlap and echo throughout the library. The group settles on Raina Telgemeier’s Smile, a paperback book boasting a turquoise-coloured cover and a yellow smiley face.

“I have to warn you,” Maliszewski says, “I didn’t get a chance to read this one.” The students erupt into playful jeers. “I know, I know,” Maliszewski says, hands on her face in mock embarrassment. “But it’s okay because you guys can tell me all about it.” The children rifle through the pages as they talk excitedly about the novel. “I read it twice,” chirps one girl seated to the right of Maliszewski.

During the club meeting, a group of boys amble into the library and linger in front of a shelf of colourful books. “I’m sorry guys, but the library’s closed. We have a club meeting going on,” Maliszewski says apologetically. The boys groan. “I know. I’m sorry, but I’m glad you guys love this place. I really am.”

Students jokingly scolding their teacher for not reading; children looking crestfallen when told the school’s library is closed. It plays like an episode of The Twilight Zone, one that parents and teachers across the country would love to see replicated. But what accounts for the kids’ enthusiasm is the type of books they’re reading: graphic novels.

Maliszewski is one of the few teachers in Canada who dedicate a student club to graphic novels. But she is one of a growing number of educators and literacy advocates who believe the often-misunderstood genre could be the key to unlocking literacy for reluctant readers.

A staggering 48 percent of Canadians over 16 struggle with poor reading skills. Literacy is commonly measured on a five-level scale, with levels three and up considered adequate to function well in contemporary society. The Canadian Council on Learning estimates that 12 million Canadians do not meet that standard, meaning they cannot cope with many basic reading tasks — things like interpreting simple graphs, reading short text, and integrating pieces of information. The absence of such rudimentary abilities make it difficult to complete high school, acquire new job skills, or even decipher a medicine label.

The current statistics are bleak, and the number of adults with low literacy is actually poised to increase by 25 percent over the next 20 years just based on population growth. Literacy organizations, parents, educators, employers — everyone is looking for new ways to get Canadians excited about reading and improve these troubling numbers. But there’s little hope for change — unless we try something new.

Although an avid reader as a child, Maliszewski didn’t discover graphic novels until her adult years when she took the course “Comics and Graphic Novels in Schools and Public Libraries,” at the University of Alberta, where she received her masters degree in the teacherlibrarianship program in 2010. The genre quickly hooked her: “The skies parted and the light shone down,” she says.

She joined the TinLids Greater Toronto Area Graphic Novels Club, a group of educators and publishers who gather to discuss the educational potential of graphic novels. In 2004, Maliszewski established a graphic novel section at Agnes Macphail’s school library. “It took off like a rocket,” says Maliszewski. “It was insanely popular, especially with the boys. A whole bunch of people just loved it.”

More and more graphic novels have ascended to respectability in literary circles lately, but the whiff of pulp entertainment — given the genre’s roots in 20th century comic books — has tended to make teachers wary of their usefulness. For every Pulitzer-winning Maus, Art Spiegelman’s haunting allegory of his Jewish ancestors fleeing the Nazis, or Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi’s poignant adolescent memoir of revolutionary Iran, there seemed to be thousands of mindlessly violent, sexually retrograde, and narratively bankrupt superhero yarns. Novels are regarded as educational and nourishing; comic books as depraved trash.

Of course, there are also plenty of lousy books without drawings in them. As the depth and breadth of good graphic novels available has grown over the last few decades, some educators have started to see how a more visually dynamic presentation can boost reading skills without feeling like a chore.

In an article entitled “Expanding Literacies Through Graphic Novels,” [PDF] comics scholar Gretchen Schwarz argues the benefits of using graphic novels as a way to expand and strengthen literacy skills. Schwarz says graphic novel readers have to pay attention to conventional literary elements of plot, character, and dialogue as well as interpret visual elements such as colour, shading, panel layout, and even lettering style, making graphic novels an engaging and sophisticated form of reading.

Maliszewski also believes the combination of word and image can help reluctant readers who have short attention spans or problems visualizing. “Comics are great for so many different areas in which people have struggled with literacy issues,” she says. “They’re the great equalizer because they’re enjoyed by kids who are not strong readers as well as kids who are strong readers.”

At 70, Ellen Szita knows firsthand the perils of low literacy skills. While growing up in Brighton, England, Szita was relegated to the “D” class throughout school because of her difficulties with literacy. When Szita was 13, a teacher unexpectedly asked her to solve a math problem during class. Unable to read, Szita froze.

The teacher ordered her to stand in front of the class. “You’re not even trying to do this,” he bellowed. Szita stood motionless as the teacher insulted her in front of the other students. As she walked back toward her desk, the teacher grabbed the blackboard eraser and threw it at her head. A year later, Szita dropped out of school.

After immigrating to Canada at age 18, Szita eventually moved to Vancouver, married, and had four children. For decades, she hid her literacy difficulties from her family. When her children asked for help with their homework, Szita asserted she was too busy. She couldn’t understand her children’s report cards and dreaded parentteacher meetings.

The one time Szita did meet with one of her children’s teachers, she dressed up and emphasized her British accent as a way of masking her challenges with literacy. “I would tell the teacher, ‘Oh, yes I understand,’” Szita recalls. “But I didn’t understand what the teacher was even saying. She was talking about algebra. I never even heard of the word ‘algebra.’ I didn’t know if she was talking about English or math.”

The turning point for Szita emerged after she and her husband divorced in 1979. Unable to support herself, Szita searched for employment. She applied to two jobs but was fired from both because of her low literacy skills. By 1987, Szita’s psychiatrist diagnosed her as dyslexic and referred her to the Victoria READ society, a non-profit organization that helps youth and adults develop and hone their literacy skills.

There, at age 46, Szita accomplished something she thought improbable: she learned to read.

As a way of promoting literacy awareness, Szita spent years sharing her experience at speaking engagements with high schools, colleges, universities, prisons, and other organizations. In 1994, the Governor General presented Szita with the Flight for Freedom Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literacy for her advocacy work. Today, Szita is the chair of the Canadian Adult Literacy Learners, an arm of a non-profit organization called the Canadian Literacy and Learning Network that supports provincial and territorial literacy coalitions across Canada.

For Szita, graphic novels and comics contain engaging and compelling stories that can encourage reading and learning amongst those with low literacy skills. Szita believes comics are an effective teaching tool that can help children and adults perceive reading as something to enjoy, instead of dread. “I think it’s a huge help,” says Szita. “You need to be happy about what you’re learning and if it’s interesting, it’s going to make a huge difference.”

Scott Tingley, a grade-three teacher at Riverside Consolidated School in Riverside-Albert, New Brunswick and founder of comicsintheclassroom.net, noticed the difference in his students’ attitudes toward reading and writing after he used an Owly comic by Andy Runton and a Monkey vs. Robot picture by James Kochalka as story starters for a grade one and two class he taught five years ago. Prompted by his students’ enthusiasm, Tingley incorporated a comics section in his classroom. “I have kids reading them all the time and I have kids from previous years coming over to borrow them,” says Tingley. “For some, comics are a joy to read. They can’t get enough.”

In his 12 years of teaching, Tingley has never encountered a student who didn’t enjoy creating comics. “At the early years they are so used to joining their drawings with their words that comics come naturally to them,” says Tingley. “I don’t try to trick kids into thinking they aren’t writing when they are creating comics; on the contrary, I make sure they are keenly aware that making comics is just another form of writing.”

While Tingley and Maliszewski use graphic novels and comics primarily in elementary school settings, the genre is equally pertinent in other educational stages. Guy Demers, an English teacher at Sir Charles Tupper Secondary School in Vancouver, first thought about using graphic novels and comics in the classroom during the mid-1980s when they started to mature as an art form.

His first attempts at using graphic novels in the classroom occurred after he noticed a few of his students struggled with reading. He gave the students copies of Usagi Yojimbo, a comic series created by Stan Sakai. “It got them so excited about reading that they burned through all 20 volumes that were out at the time,” says Demers. “They started reading books along the same lines.”

The medium is finding uses in post-secondary education too. Rob Heynen, a professor in York University’s program in social and political thought, is one of the many professors at the university who has used graphic novels as course material. In his fourth-year course, “Visual Culture: Histories, Theories, and Politics,” Heynen incorporated Alan Moore’s Watchmen, an influential deconstruction of the superhero narrative, into his lecture on comics and graphic arts in popular culture.

Heynen says graphic novels, which depend on the reader’s ability to interpret and create meanings out of sequential images, are a useful way to develop a person’s literacy skills. “Even for people with low levels of literacy, images are still things that they can read,” he says. But Heynen believes the types of literacy skills required for graphic novels is different from that of traditional prose material, although both are related through their use of text. “They’re two different kinds of literacy in a way,” says Heynen.

However, Maliszewski says the idea of graphic novels as a “transitional medium” is one of the stigmas hindering the genre. “It’s a little elitist to say comics will lead us to ‘real’ reading,” says Maliszewski. “If you just read comics, that’s okay. Your parents might not think so, but it really is.”

Graphic novels still labour under the stigma toward comic books that swept North American culture in the 1940s and ‘50s, when censorious researchers sounded alarms over comics’ sexual and violent content. Most notable was the psychiatrist Fredric Wertham’s 1954 book, The Seduction of the Innocent, which dubiously but sensationally correlated real-world “deviant” behaviour with the kind of crime stories depicted in pulp comics of the time.

Although that kind of moral panic is no longer widespread, Maliszewski says she still encounters misconceptions about the genre. She overheard a fellow teacher proclaim that all manga (the massively popular Japanese comics) are pornographic—decidedly not the case—and still runs into resistance from teachers and librarians who believe sex and violence is still pervasive.

In general, the feedback to Maliszewski’s graphic novels collection has been positive, but not without some controversy. Some parents complained their kids only borrowed graphic novels and dismissed more traditional prose books.

Guy Demers says he also hears complaints that graphic novels, by adding visual elements, rob readers of the ability to imagine a book’s narrative themselves. “This is the comment that, to me, speaks to the general public’s ignorance of the form,” he says. “Would Citizen Kane have been better as a book? Would the Mona Lisa have made a better poem? It’s a different form and needs to be examined on its own terms.”

If the stigmas and misconceptions about reading graphic novels are common, the ones facing people with low literacy are even more widespread. Advocates believe illiteracy is a silent epidemic, misunderstood or, more commonly, simply ignored. Canada, for instance, is one of the few developed countries in the world without a national reading strategy. “The general public still doesn’t understand literacy and what it means to have low or poor literacy skills,” says Lindsay Kennedy, senior manager at the Movement for Canadian Literacy. But the social and economic effects are deep and widespread: low literacy is strongly associated with poor health and poverty. “When your literacy skills are low, you’re at risk,” says Kennedy.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. A common misperception is that people with poor literacy cannot read at all, which is seldom the case. Far more common is low literacy, in which people can glean the bare minimum from a text. “Literacy is very much like a muscle,” says Kennedy. “If you don’t use it at all, you tend to forget how to use it.”

The Canadian government’s failure to address the country’s low literacy levels isn’t just a disconcerting issue for literacy organizations; educators like Maliszewski are also rallying for awareness and change. A national reading summit in 2009 assembled educators, librarians, academics, and publishers alike to discuss plans for a Canadian national reading strategy.

Although Maliszewski supports this movement, she says one of the problems the summit faced was the “prioritizing of literature,” which placed so-called “alternative reading materials,” such as graphic novels and comics, below that of traditional prose. She’s troubled by the implications of that.

“If you want to have a national reading strategy, you can’t be elitist about what people are reading,” says Maliszewski. “Reading comics is still reading. And depending on the comic, it’s really sophisticated reading.”

While the idea of graphic novels and comics as a legitimate means to combat low literacy levels in Canada is still contentious, there are educators across the country hoping people will see the merits of the graphic novel genre, in its ability to act both as a link to many other kinds of reading, and as a fulfilling and meaningful pastime in itself. Maliszewski wants to see all kinds of reading “not just tolerated, but celebrated.”

With so many Canadians facing literacy problems, and all the attendant difficulties that follow, it seems irresponsible not to try. Lindsay Kennedy believes the stakes are about as high as they can be: “Literacy is about giving people power. It’s about giving them freedom.”

Pages Books' bare shelves in its final days of business. Photo by Rick McGinnis.

On a warm night in early September, several hundred people gathered at Toronto’s Gladstone Hotel to hold a wake for a bookstore.

For 30 years, until its closing at the end of August, Pages Books, located in the heart of the city’s Queen Street West neighbourhood, had been one of the premier destinations for books on contemporary art and cultural and literary theory, while serving as a major conduit for the area’s small press.

As one speaker after another shared their thoughts on Pages’ closing, it became clear that no one is certain who or what will replace the role that Pages played in the city’s literary and artistic community. No one dared suggest the massive Chapters-Indigo bookstore just down the street.

The very fact that so many people came out to lament the closure of a store is a clear indicator of how important independent bookstores have been to their local communities. Yet, for all their social and cultural impact, the future of indie bookshops is in doubt.

The independent bookseller in Canada has had a rough ride in recent years. The disappearance of Pages follows hot on the heels of the closing, earlier this year, of Toronto’s Mirvish Books, perhaps Canada’s most prestigious art bookstore. Vancouver and Halifax have also been hit by a wave of bookstore closures; the once-thriving Duthie’s Books chain in British Columbia is down to only one location closed as of the end of February, 2010.

No fewer than three major upheavals have hit the world of book retailing in the past two decades. First came the big-box book retailers, Chapters and Indigo, now united as a near-monopoly, accounting for some 70 percent of book retailing in Canada; then came the internet and online book sales; and most recently the rise of the eBook, which promises (some would say threatens) to turn the book into yet another piece of software.

It was the first of those upheavals—the big-box retailers— that did the most damage to the independent neighbourhood bookstore. Some 350 indie bookstores closed across Canada in the past decade, and, according to Susan Dayus, executive director of the Canadian Booksellers Association, much of that had to do with the arrival of the Chapters chain.

“Those closures happened very quickly when Chapters opened,” Dayus says. “The leadership of Chapters was very predatory—they opened across the street or kitty-corner to successful bookstores. And those who didn’t have strong financial backing went under.”

Chapters seemed to have tried that strategy with Pages, setting up a sprawling location one block south of the landmark bookstore. But the strategy didn’t work.

“We beat them in the sense that we survived,” says Marc Glassman, founder and owner of Pages. He notes that, as Chapters and Indigo expanded across the city and the internet attracted book buyers, Pages’ own sales continued to climb. What killed Pages, in the end, was the rent. At $270,000 a year, Glassman’s lease was simply unaffordable for a mom-and-pop bookstore.

It’s a pattern that has been repeating itself across major Canadian urban areas. “Vancouver has lost an incredible number of bookstores,” James Mullin, co-owner of Vancouver’s Tanglewood Books, said in an interview last year. “I am literally in the last building in this area that I can afford, and it’s not because of the revenue or that business is terribly poor.” High property taxes and rental costs are hard on Vancouver’s independent businesses he said.

But the CBA’s Dayus says it’s not all bad news for indie booksellers. She points to the recent expansion of Winnipeg-based bookstore McNally Robinson into Toronto, where the store is distinguishing itself by offering not only books but daily events, such as readings and signings. [Update, January 2010 — About two months after this article was originally published, McNally Robinson declared bankruptcy and closed its Toronto and Vancouver locations. It still operates its original store in Winnipeg and a branch in Saskatoon]

“There is space in the market for good [independent] booksellers, those who tweak their product mix to the local community,” Dayus says. “Through the internet, you find the book you were looking for. Through the local bookstore, you find the book you didn’t know you were looking for.”

Glassman agrees. He sees the future of independent bookstores as being “a meeting ground for artists, creators, political thinkers. Chapters-Indigo will never be able to do that. You can’t impose a grassroots sensibility on something that started as a marketing concept.”

In 2007, Ugandan Archbishop Odama places an internet phone call to an internally-displaced people's camp 70 km away. Internet technologies are encouraging ground-up development like this across the continent. Photo courtesy Bosco-Uganda.

I first stumbled across BOSCO-Uganda in July 2008. I was nearing the end of my internship with the Women of Uganda Network and was becoming increasingly interested in what is being called information and communication technology for development or ICT4D.

BOSCO-Uganda introduced me to the idea of using basic technology developed in the Western world for community development in completely different cultural and social settings. In particular, they were using the Internet was giving young people access to a whole breadth of information never reached before: from grant-making agencies to international news.

Just over a year later, I decided to check in with Kevin Bailey, Organizational and Communications Envoy with BOSCO-Uganda, to see how the organization was growing. For some background material, check out my previous article here.

Since 2008, BOSCO-Uganda has grown exponentially. The organization now covers a total of 20 different sites, providing wireless Internet access and free satellite phone connections. With support to a local HIV/AIDS community based organization, a local Catholic Radio Station and a local government office, among others, BOSCO-Uganda has also started riding the Web 2.0 wave.

“We have really gained traction in our Web 2.0 Train the Trainer model at the community sites. We developed and produced a curriculum manual that is specifically for these rural based Web 2.0 trainings in rural northern Uganda,” Kevin Bailey, Organizational and Communications Envoy for BOSCO-Uganda explains, “The whole concept is based on getting the user to jump right onto the Internet and begin collaborating first, rather than following the typical Ugandan school curriculum of learning to use a computer in a very methodical way that begins with word processing, spreadsheets, etc., and never really get to practical use of the Internet for collaboration purposes.”

“We think that if users begin using Web 2.0 collaboration tools as a starting point, they will learn how to use the basic skills like word processing in the process (imagine a user learning to word processing skills by sending emails and making blog/wikispace posts),” he continues. Trainees have already started using their new knowledge and posting at www.bosco-uganda.wikispaces.net.

BOSCO also hopes to use their technology to teach adult literacy and numeracy. When I first spoke with BOSCO last year, they mentioned that teaching people computer literacy was difficult as they did not have the staff capacity nor scope. However, with new funding from UNICEF, it looks like their mandate is expanding.

“The idea would be to digitize the curriculum, put it on our high speed server, provide a set of low power netbooks and allow a literacy teacher to hold community literacy classes while the students learn using the computer as the tool to gain those literacy skills,” says Bailey, who also believes the use of computers will encourage people previously too shy to come forward due to stigma around illiteracy.

Bailey says the BOSCO’s uniqueness lies in simply “provid[ing] the medium to connect and offer[ing] a bit of guidance; the usage and direction will be driven by the community members who taken an active role in using our services.”

Morever, as Bailey express, BOSCO’s services “do not to be necessarily focused in one area like other development programs. We don’t have to just focus on education or health. We can be broad in our approach because ICT and connectivity affects every area of development and we’d like to work with others who see value in connectivity and collaboration in all development areas.”

Issue #1 of Kwani?, the journal of contemporary African literature.

Several of my previous blog posts have mentioned Kwani?, the Nairobi literary journal/publishing network dedicated to building contemporary African literature. My interest in the publication was first aroused by the contrasting literary scenes in Uganda and Kenya. While FEMRITE, based in Kampala, Uganda, is a strong local writers’ organization, I never found a literary magazine like Kwani? in Eastern Africa, which offered everything the local and foreign reader could want: fiction, non-fiction, poetry, illustrations—all dealing with the world that is Kenya from a hundred different perspectives.

So, when I was first introduced to Kwani?, I could not let go. Since then, I’ve learned a lot about the role of literature in the development of a national psyche, particularly in post-conflict situations. Words have a way of immortalizing moments that are otherwise easily swept under the rug forever. In this sense, we are indebted to the artists that immortalize these events and ensure their recognition in the long-term, whether political, economic or social. As Kahora says, “writers are society’s conscience.”

In Kenya, this has been particularly important. The post-election crisis could have become just that: another post-election crisis. Previous elections have been bloody. Previous elections have been rigged. Previous elections were built on empty promises and on bought votes. But through literature like Kwani?, perhaps there is an acute awareness among the public that this is not just another post-election crisis. This was the final straw.

The last two issues of Kwani? focused on the post-election crisis, making an indelible impression on readers. The goal was to record in pictures, cartoons, poetry, fiction and creative non-fiction what happened in the first 100 days of 2008. As Kahora says, “One of the big problems we’ve always had is a problem in recording momentous events in this country which leads to a widespread amnesia; such a record, makes sure there is no excuse, at least from a literary community’s viewpoint, for the kind of behaviour [during the post-election crisis].”

Consequently, Kwani? also wants to focus on the younger generation of Kenyans and their aspirations for the country as ‘leaders of tomorrow.’ Kahora says that the next issue of Kwani? will focus on “youth expressions—as a way of going deeper into the 46-year-old malaise [Kenya] is suffering…re-evaluating who we are and what directions we are heading in.” Closer to the 2012 elections, Kahora says Kwani? will use the magazine “as [a] way of making people remember.”

Among youth, the coming generation of Kenyan leaders and doers, Kahora says that Kwani? represents “a younger un-texted space that falls outside of official narratives, that can be written into being.” Kenya is a country saturated with stale political narratives that never seem to change, published day to day in the big local newspaper, The Daily Nation. Kwani?, though perhaps only drop in the bucket in the long-run, offers youth, and other Kenyans, a means of looking beyond the mainstream and writing out a new idea of Kenya. Perhaps, through this process, some of these aspirations will become reality.

A nomadic Somali woman leads her camels in the drought-afflicted north of Kenya. Photo by Siena Anstis.

The drought in Northern Kenya this year is severe. Farah Olad, the Deputy Chief of Party of Education for Marginalized Children of Kenya (EMACK), an organization which works with Somali pastoral communities, tells me grey is the “color of death” in this rural region.

And the whole landscape is grey: from the ground to the pinky-sized thorns on the low-lying trees that populate the desert. Within minutes of leaving the paved highway leading out of Garissa, the biggest city between Nairobi and Mogadishu, I am greeted by the ominous sight of two dead goats.

Northern Kenyans are primarily pastoral ethnic Somalis. Many call the region “the forgotten Kenya” and characterize it as under the partial authority of wealthy Somali businessmen.

For centuries, these nomadic groups have crossed the borders of Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia with little regard for politics. Their one mission, to maintain their herd, was fulfilled through the graces of nature and a predictable climate: long and short rainy seasons, as well as a limited dry spell.

However, climate change has brought new challenges: an extended dry season, no short rains this year and the potential of an El Niño long rain accompanied by violent flash floods in December.

Pastoral communities are aware of the ticking time-bomb that comes with their lifestyle. While, as Olad says, most would herd their goats, cows and camels into the depths of a war-torn country like Somalia to maintain their livelihood and culture, many understand that their lifestyle will not suffice for all. Increasingly, pastoral communities rely on the capacity of the uninterested central Kenyan government to deliver relief services and help them build alternatives to their unstable lifestyle.
One way of addressing this problem—and ensuring equitable representation of Somali Kenyans within their host country—is through secular education. Education offers alternatives: it gives children the possibility of thinking for themselves, as a part of a wider Kenya, and ensuring that they understand that there are choices. However, as families move year-round, there is little means for a child to access the formal primary school system.

Through mobile schools, the Nomadic Heritage Association (NOHA) and EMACK, are attempting to bring the next generation of nomadic Somalis this choice. They foresee the escalating difficulties pastoralists will face as potential “climate refugees.”

Each nomadic community is made up of an average seven households, all led by a head man. These communities follow pasture and water with their herds. Mobile schools follow these communities. As Islamic education is key to Somali culture, each group already has a dugsi, or an Islamic learning school, which occupies a majority of young children’s time along with daily chores. Secular education is slowly being introduced through the mobile schools, which provide teaching materials and offer the opportunity to train a teacher from the community.

Classes focus on English, Kiswahili, and Math. In one mobile school, most children have learned to write their names. Their exercise books are filled with neatly drawn figures and calculations. For a community that has been illiterate for generations, this is a significant change. Many would call it self-empowering. As Olad says, “It is not about changing culture, but about strengthening existing culture.” The latter part means ensuring that Somali communities can maintain their culture through a network made of a younger generation who speak the languages of both their Somali homes and of Kenya at large.

For more photos, please visit Welcome to “Forgotten Kenya.”