In response to what is referred to as the “literacy crisis”, my Global Gleanings column no.27 of March 2026 was devoted to literacy. I ended the column with a challenge to readers: what is your library doing to address our crisis of basic literacy?

I received the following response from Jane Kinney Meyers, the founding president of Lubuto Library Partners (LLP), a non-profit organization working in Zambia. By way of background, Lubuto is a grassroots organization that has worked for twenty years to show the important role that public libraries can play in addressing complex challenges such as gender inequality, HIV/AIDS, climate change, poverty, inadequate access to education, and lack of opportunity.

Specifically concerning Lubuto’s  role in promoting literacy, Jane writes:

“We recognized early on that many, or even most, of the children we encountered could not read. Lubuto Library Partners’ (LLP) public libraries in Zambia developed several programs to address literacy challenges of, particularly, young people who are not in school.

Two young women attending the Baby Laptop programme (Source: Lubuto Library Partners)

BABY LAPTIME supports parents and caregivers to give their babies the best start from the very beginning of their lives. It features a diverse collection of books, songs, talking, reading and bounces developmentally appropriate for children from birth to when they start walking. This program is designed so the baby will be in their caregiver’s lap and the grownup is actively involved. Incorporating traditional early childhood practices throughout Zambia, Baby Laptime includes songs, rhymes, and games drawn from Zambia’s oral traditions and cultures and is conducted in English and Zambian languages.

CREATIVE PLAY offers early learning activities to preschool- and elementary-aged children in a program based on the Zambian Early Childhood Education curriculum.  Creative Play sessions include early literacy activities focused on building skills such as

Children engaged in creative play in the “clinic”

phonogical awareness, print awareness and motivation, narrative skills, and letter awareness, as well as music and movement, science experiments and math activities. The Lubuto Model Library’s Creative Play Center (CPC) is equipped with five stations for imaginary play: a traditional market; a clinic; a farm; a kitchen; and a family playroom.

LUBUTOLITERACY is a set of 710 multimedia lessons created by LLP to teach children who are speakers of Zambia’s seven major languages (Nyanja, Bemba, Lozi, Luvale, Lunda, Tonga and Kaonde) how to read. The lessons are designed for

Children engaged in a multimedia literacy lesson (c) Lubuto Library Partners)

independent use, with gradual progression from learning single vowels to vowel combinations, then simple to complex syllables eventually combined into decodable words, and finally lessons consisting of short reading comprehension texts. In addition to the lessons’ simple progression, they contain images that match with the word meanings, providing supportive context clues.

To date the lessons have helped over 7,600 children learn to read.

YOUNG MOTHERS is a four-month program offered twice a week in a supportive peer group environment to improve English literacy skills for young mothers, the majority of whom were forced to drop out of school after becoming pregnant. The program addresses specific educational needs of the young mothers through an adult English-language literacy curriculum that teaches them to read and write in English and puts them on a path to jobs and success.”

Young mothers attending a literacy class outdoors during Covid

These four are not the only innovative programmes that Lubuto has developed for the four community libraries/resource centers that it has established in Zambia in partnership with Zambia’s Ministry of Education, the Zambia library Service, the University of Zambia, and international agencies

A big thank you to Jane for sharing these inspiring ideas with us!