Happy New Year from BALID!

We're delighted that Mary-Rose Puttick has joined the BALID Committee and look forward to her contribution to the work of BALID! Mary-Rose will lead the first Informal Literacy Discussion (ILD) of 2022.

Mary-Rose says, "My teaching practice is in adult and community education where I've taught family literacy to parents and children from multilingual backgrounds. I recently completed my PhD at Birmingham City University and my research focused on family literacy in the refugee third sector from the perspectives of mothers from asylum seeking and refugee backgrounds. I've volunteered at a refugee charity for the last 5 years and am now a voluntary Asylum Guide for a Refugee Action project. I have a strong commitment to volunteering and refugee activism and am particularly interested in literacies in transitory spaces, between asylum seeker and refugee status. I am a Research Assistant at Birmingham City University and is currently working on two international projects.

Two new BALID Blog posts!

Alan Rogers, Visiting Professor in the School of Education and Lifelong Learning at the University of East Anglia and President of BALID, contributed the last BALID blog post of 2021. He examines the importance of coming alongside someone - being a supportive companion - helping them with their tasks. Read "Adult Literacy: To Learn or not to learn? That is the question ...  on the BALID Blog here.

Remembering Lalage.

The death of Professor Lalage Bown on 17th December was a great blow for everyone in the world of Adult Education and beyond. Lalage was an ardent and faithful supporter of BALID and contributed to many events over the years. BALID Committee members Katy Newell-Jones, Ian Cheffy and Mary Anderson share their personal and professional memories of Lalage in a blog post that you can find here.
 

Articles and Resources ....

We are planning to regularly highlight helpful resources that will be of interest to BALID members and friends. Do let us know your suggestions for articles or others resources that we should share - send your suggestions to Catherine ([email protected]). Below are some resources identified by members of your BALID committee.

BALID Chair, Chris Millora, recommends the Global Education Monitoring Report and two GEMR background papers on adult learning/literacy. All are open access.

Global Education Monitoring Report: Non-State Actors in Education: Who Chooses, Who loses?:  https://en.unesco.org/gem-report/non-state_actors

Non-state actors in non-formal youth and adult education (Ulrike Hanemann, BALID Honorary Member) :      https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000380082

Adult literacy and learning for social change: innovation, influence and the role of non-state actors: case studies from Afghanistan, China, the Philippines and Senegal (developed by UEA UNESCO Chair team):  https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000380075?fbclid=IwAR12u7hQlXyifgHvEAXosk1ixJdJ_2mX6mi7Y1LvkR1wc6_YmtmMn48h8Hg

Mary-Rose Puttick recommends Language support for adult refugees: a Council of Europe toolkit. This toolkit is designed to assist organisations that provide language support for refugees, and especially the volunteers working for them.

We look forward to seeing you at the ILD on March 3rd! Please be in touch and contribute to our BALID newsletter.

Catherine Young
([email protected])