Leadership in Literacy: Capacity Building and the Ifè Program

How do you cultivate sustainable literacy organizations that promote development? This is a central question for literacy and development practitioners. The Ifè literacy program of Togo models the successful development of one such organization, and the productive secondary programs that came into being as a result.

Reeder describes the context and history of the development of the Ifè literacy associations, and uses social representation theory from French academia to explore how cultural representations of leadership and of literacy contributed to the strength of leadership development in this program. The author further evaluates the capacity building of personnel, organizations, and local communities in terms of who made decisions, social representations of leadership and literacy regarding those decisions, and their impact.

This book will interest facilitators of literacy and development programs and anyone involved in cross-cultural training. It contributes to leadership theories and models, particularly African leadership in volunteer organizations, by providing data on leadership qualities valued by one African culture, which can be extended to other African cultures. It also adds to the understanding of
the relationship between literacy and development.

JeDene Reeder (Ed.D., Simon Fraser University) is a Senior Literacy and Education Consultant with SIL International. She worked as a literacy specialist in the Pagibete language in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, then as both consultant and Literacy Coordinator in Togo and Benin.