When visiting a community leader in Sungai Choh, Rawang and hearing the plight of children having insufficient literacy skills and the grim reality of how so few young people from the community go to college or university, senior lecturer Hema Letchamanan from the School of Education at Taylor’s University immediately made plans to implement the volunteer-based targeted reading programme she leads - Projek BacaBaca - within the community.

However, her team was faced with poor Internet and telephone connection, which are the main platforms used for the programme based on the notion of learning ‘anywhere, anytime’.

Determined to continue their support for the community through a different approach, the Projek BacaBaca team decided to train a group of stay-at-home mothers within the community to be reading coaches, so they in turn could teach reading to the children within their own communities.

Since April this year, five women from Sungai Choh in Rawang have been receiving training sessions led by the team of teacher-training and early literacy experts from Taylor’s. Using the lesson plans and materials provided by the Projek BacaBaca team, these women are now able to conduct reading sessions to children in their community, reaching a total of 25 participating students between 6 to 9 years old.

“Targeted interventions and community-based learning are powerful and effective as the children are learning from someone they’re familiar with. This also empowers the adults in the community, especially women, to plan and execute early literacy programmes like Projek BacaBaca Komuniti, which is more sustainable in the long run,” said Hema.

“On top of the training we have received, we are sent new lesson plans and audio reading files every week for both English and BM to further help us manage and conduct effective group reading classes. The group of students I teach had no alphabetical knowledge prior to this but after participating in the programme, they are now starting to spell suku kata (syllables) in BM without guidance so that makes me very happy,” said Leelaveni Amah Kesavan, one of the five women involved in Projek BacaBaca Komuniti as teachers.

As the coordinator from the beneficiary community, Thilagawathy Kesavan shared how Projek BacaBaca Komuniti has not only empowered the students to enhance their reading abilities, allowing them to perform better at school in classes and exams, but also motivates herself and her fellow teachers to contribute to their respective families’ income through the monthly allowance funded by the project sponsor, Trinovik Labs.

“This is a big opportunity for us as a community, homemakers, and parents and we are very excited for the future. We are determined to ensure this pilot is a success to improve the lives of so many families we know who need help when it comes to their children’s education,” she said.