Another component called Families for Literacy gets the pre-school children of the literacy students into the public library programmes. In South Africa the fragmented nature of literacy projects has resulted in only some hundreds of potential adult learners making progress. There are 12-14 million people with inadequate or no water supply and 21 million have no safe sanitation systems. A case in point is Canny Hlatshwayo a school teacher in the small village of Huntington South Africa. These conditions are not conducive to learning.
Libraries are in a prime position to be active in alleviating some of the problems of illiteracy.
They have the conditions to be able to co-ordinate projects more effectively. They have an infrastructure. They have buildings for venues. They are in close contact with their communities. They have human and materials resources.