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Reading Kiosks: Literacy Empowerment for the Girl-Child

This paper reports on the Reading Kiosks English literacy project carried out in Opa-settlement, Ile-Ife in Nigeria. In all, 46 girls between the ages of 7 and 22 years took part in activities such as journal writing, shared reading, uninterrupted sustained silent reading, world literacy day celebration, story telling, retelling and writing, a reading festival, etc. The project reveals that, given the opportunity, girls are able to use available resources to achieve empowerment for both personal and national development. Since the gender gap in literacy and education is widespread, and especially marked in less developed countries of the world, and because the equity issue has significant economic, demographic and health implications, the paper is essentially concerned with the ways by which the girl-child can be empowered to achieve her full role in the community.