Compassion International Ghana (CIGH) a non-governmental organization that focuses on the holistic development of underprivileged children has partnered with Worldreader to provide access to context-appropriate digital books to 30, 000 children in Ghana.
The three-year partnership between CIGH and Worldreader involves the delivery of a digital collection of books that are culturally relevant and leveled based on the unique reading abilities of children.
The intervention is expected to improve the functional reading abilities of 5,000 learners in the next six months and over 30,000 children and youth by 2025.
The Worldreader digital reading solution supports offline access to digital resources and allows caregivers to have direct access to available content to support children to read within the home environment.
In its 17-year existence in Ghana as a child-focused NGO, Compassion International Ghana, has identified low literacy as a major factor that reinforces poverty by denying children and youth access to critical reading, writing and communication skills necessary for academic success, lifelong learning, and community participation.
Recent research findings by UNICEF show that only 7% of early grade children are achieving proficiency in reading.
While baseline results of a study conducted by CIGH show that a significant number of early grade participants of Compassion’s holistic child development program in Ghana are performing above the national average, lessons from the impact of COVID-19 including school shutdowns and general disruptions to education systems show that access to digital learning resources is key to promoting learning continuity in emergencies, averting learning losses, and sustaining gains.
Compassion International Ghana’s partnership with Worldreader will ensure that children have access to interactive leveled readers, audiobooks, and fluency-enhancing features that promote learning motivation, student reading practices, and academic success.
This is in line with the organization’s objective of expanding access to community-based learning opportunities for children and youth to build functional literacy competencies.
Over the next three years, children in over 90 communities across 10 regions of Ghana would benefit from the digital reading intervention.
Compassion International Ghana is a Christ-centered, holistic child development organization with the mission to ‘release children from poverty in Jesus’ name’.
The organization, through its Church partners and global sponsors, seeks to break the vicious cycle of poverty by equipping children and youth with the skills and resources that position them to attain total wellbeing and economic self-sufficiency.