September 8 is home to a lesser-known celebration, International Literacy Day.
International Literacy Day was made in 1966, and is continuously celebrated with the support of the United Nations, and despite the challenges of literacy, it’s something we take for granted all the time. The U.N. is a major international organization. The main goal is to maintain peace between several countries, yet they’re promoting literacy. That must mean, somehow; illiteracy is connected to the disadvantage of a large variety of peoples. It must mean that illiteracy is connected to war and the dismemberment of peace.
A permanent member in the U.N. is The United States of America, and we have one of the highest literacy rates in the world, a total of 99%, but as Americans, we forget over and over that the average percent in Africa as a whole is 65.5%, that includes all classes of people; poor, rich, middle class, all of them combined.
A simple, basic way to help literacy, as small a difference as it could make, is to simply talk about it. People generally don’t understand how large an issue of illiteracy is. It’s not just as simple as not being able to read, or being able to write. It’s connected to literally everything. It’s what makes some countries poor, it’s part of what makes the difference between a war-torn country like South Sudan and a country like America.
South Sudan, a country in the Mideast of Africa struggles with unprecedented amounts of illiteracy. Quite literally 27% of people are literate, and a total of 8% of women can read and write. Meaning 92% of women as a whole are illiterate, 92% of women can’t read or write in any form in South Sudan.
Literacy isn’t even related to wealth, per se -- North Korea has a reported literacy rate of 100%, and North Korea is one of the poorest countries on the globe. Illiteracy is caused by an insecure government, and it stands next to global warming and starvation in terms of global severity. If we can entirely solve illiteracy, the chances for other major issues to in turn be solved, rises a significant amount.