- Meet Dolores
- Stateline Literacy Council: A Tightknit Community
- Congratulations Dorothy Jansen
- We Welcome Julia Norton to the Team!
- Save the Date: Winter Virtual Conference
- Making Matches
- Prison Education Program Lifts Voices from the Inside
- Save the Date: Health Literacy Summit
- We're Hiring Vaccine Community Outreach Specialists
- AmeriCorps VISTA Opportunity: Literacy Leader
- Winnebago Area Literacy Council Needs a Literacy Instructor
- Literacy Opportunity Fund
- The Latino Academy Regional Transportation Training Center
- Race in the Heartland: Equity, Opportunity, and Public Policy in the Midwest
- Diversity and race in the workplace: Engaging with colleagues and direct reports
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When Dolores started learning English at Stateline Literacy Council (SLC), she was very shy and hesitant to speak up at first. Dolores shared, “I just felt like I couldn't express myself at all. I couldn't get my point across.”
Now, in 2021, Dolores has a different job with a higher hourly wage. She takes a business class because in Mexico she was a business owner.
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Stateline Literacy Council: A Tightknit Community |
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Stateline Literacy Council (SLC) is a long-standing organization that provides English language classes as well as Spanish GED preparation serving a large population of non-native English speakers in the Beloit area.
SLC has created a tightknit community of students. Students share with each other motivations and inspire each other. The friendships continue beyond the classroom.
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Congratulations Dorothy Jansen! |
Congratulations to long-time Kenosha Literacy Council volunteer Dorothy Jansen on receiving a Governor's Service Award in recognition of her 24 years of volunteering!
Thank you for the countless lives you've changed as a tutor and your tireless efforts supporting the Kenosha Literacy Council.
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We Welcome Julia Norton to the Team! |
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We’re excited to welcome Julia Norton as our health literacy Project Manager. Julia worked as a Clinical Research Assistant at both the VA Portland and San Diego Health Care Systems. She worked with patients who had Parkinson’s Disease, Traumatic Brain Injuries, and Multiple Sclerosis.
Julia shares, "At Wisconsin Literacy, I get opportunities to make systematic changes to improve health equity, empowering communities with the tools they need to make informed decisions about their health. I am honored to work for an organization that views health literacy as a critical foundation for leading a healthy life."
We hope you will join us in welcoming Julia to our team.
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Save the Date: Winter Virtual Conference |
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Save the date for Wisconsin Literacy 3rd Annual Winter Virtual Conference.
When: February 7-11, 2022. 1 - 1½ hour sessions throughout the week
Sessions include:
- Financial Literacy
- Digital Literacy
- Connecting with Workforce Development
- Tutor Workshop with Intercambio
- and more!
Where: The comfort of your own home or office
Webinar Descriptions and Registration: Coming Soon!
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December 16, 2021 at 2:00 PM
Join Marsha Connet, Southeast Regional Literacy Consultant, for an informal discussion about matching students and tutors--one on one or small groups.
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Prison Education Program Lifts Voices from the Inside |
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The Bureau of Justice Statistics states that 75% of incarcerated individuals are classified as low literate. Prison education systems educate adults with the goal of giving them a better chance upon release. In fact, incarcerated individuals who participate in adult education programs are 43% less likely to return to prison within three years of leaving prison than those who do not.
Exchange for Change enters prisons to offer writing classes that range in topic from literature to song writing and play writing to poetry and journalism, said Kathie Klarreich, the nonprofit’s founder and CEO.
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Save the Date: Health Literacy Summit |
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The Summit will take place in-person on April 4-6, 2022 at The Edgewater in Madison, Wisconsin. This year’s theme is Embracing Health Literacy in the New Normal: Digital Communications, Telehealth, Health Insurance, and Health Equity.
Plenary Speakers for the 2022 Health Literacy Summit include:
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Suleika Jaouad, journalist and author of the New York Times bestselling book ‘Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted’.
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Dr. Jorge Rodriguez, physician, health technology and equity researcher, and instructor at Brigham and Women's Hospital.
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Gail Kouame, Associate Professor and Assistant Director for research and education services at Augusta University.
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Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, physician, educator, podcast host, and former Executive Director of the Detroit Health Department.
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Mystery Speaker, the closing keynote is an internationally known health communicator who sheds a whole new light on understanding health information
The Wisconsin Health Literacy Summit is the largest health literacy conference in the Midwest and provides the opportunity to share interventions, tools, and strategies to improve health literacy and patient outcomes.
Registration will open January 2022. WL Member rate is $175.
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Resources and Funding Opportunities |
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Literacy Opportunity Fund |
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The Literacy Opportunity Fund awards grants to nonprofit organizations within the United States that provide literacy services directly to students.
Funded by the Nora Roberts Foundation and administered by ProLiteracy, the Literacy Opportunity Fund distributes grants of $3,000 to $6,000 to support general operating expenses.
This new fund aims to meet the needs of literacy organizations of all types and sizes so that they may effectively and efficiently provide services to students.
Application Guidelines
To be eligible for this grant, your organization must
- be a registered nonprofit with 501(c)(3) status
- have an Employer Identification Number (EIN)
- provide literacy services directly to students
- be located within the United States
- not have already received a Literacy Opportunity Fund grant this calendar year
- Applications that do not meet all requirements for eligibility will not be reviewed.
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We're Hiring Vaccine Community Outreach Specialists |
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Wisconsin Health Literacy is hiring four Regional Vaccine Community Outreach (VCO) Specialist positions for a 3-year Covid-19 vaccination outreach and education project.
Each VCO specialist will be located in a different region across Wisconsin: Northeast, Southeast, Northwest, or Southwest/South Central. Under the general direction of the Health Literacy Director and the VCO Project Manager, VCO Specialists will be part of a team that will design, test, implement, and manage Covid-19 vaccine outreach strategies across Wisconsin.
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AmeriCorps VISTA Opportunity: Literacy Leader |
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West CAP, an innovative, forward thinking community action organization serving low-income families, is recruiting a full-time Literacy Leader in partnership with AmeriCorps VISTA.
This position is for a one-year term beginning January 18, 2022. You will help West CAP Literacy rebuild our Adult Literacy Program to recover from the impact of COVID-19. It is time to renew our literacy program and make it better than ever!
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Winnebago Area Literacy Council Needs a Literacy Instructor |
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Winnebago Area Literacy Council is looking for a candidate to teach their Workplace Literacy class at a small manufacturing company in Neenah. The class will run on Mondays from 9 to 10am, for a total of 16 instructional hours with 2 hours per week of paid prep time. Plus, one session of pre-assessment and post-assessment test, which makes for a total of 18 hours.
They hope to find a bilingual individual who is fluent in Spanish, or to find two individuals – an instructor and an interpreter. The chosen candidate will work closely with the Vocational Services Director. They will be given a customized curriculum, the reference books, the lesson plan template, and the only thing they have to do is to design the lesson plan utilizing all available reference books, texts for grammar, basic literacy and specific communications in the workplace.
No formal teaching experience is necessary!
For questions, please contact their Vocational Services Director, Oxana at
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Race in the Heartland
Equity, Opportunity, and Public Policy in the Midwest
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By Colin Gordon
A number of factors—historical, economic, demographic, and political—have shaped patterns of racial disparity and race relations in the Midwest. Of the eight most segregated cities in 2010’s Census data, six (Milwaukee, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, St. Louis, and Cincinnati) are in the Midwest. And despite some pockets of Latino growth in the last generation, fully 91.4% of midwesterners identify as white alone or black alone. This report looks at racial disparities in education, employment, wages, income, poverty, homeownership, incarceration, access to health care, wealth, and voting access. It includes a comprehensive slate of policy recommendations to achieve racial equity in the Midwest including investing in public education, raising wages for all workers, addressing labor market discrimination, adopting paid family leave and low-cost child care, and improving our social safety net.
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Diversity and race in the workplace: Engaging with colleagues and direct reports |
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Published by the Massachusetts Institute for Technology (MIT) Human Resources Department
Many of us have a new awareness of the issues related to race that others have been experiencing for their entire lives. These disparities in perspective make engaging in conversations about race at work challenging. To aid your efforts, we’re including some tools and resources to inform your preparation for, and self-reflection on, these complex and ongoing conversations.
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The Latino Academy Regional Transportation Training Center |
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A New Partnership of the Wisconsin Motor Carriers Association and the Wisconsin Beverage Association with the Latino Academy of Workforce Development will extend the reach of this successful wraparound training model through the Latino Academy Regional Transportation Training Center.
This innovative partnership will connect unemployed and underemployed Wisconsin residents in South Central (Columbia, Dane, Dodge, Jefferson, Marquette and Sauk) and Southeastern Wisconsin (Kenosha, Racine, Walworth) with the needed support and training to complete the Commercial Driver License (CDL) training, find related employment, and quickly onboard with employers.
These are family-supporting jobs, with benefits. As of Oct. 14, 2021, the average annual pay for a CDL holder driving a heavy or tractor-trailer truck in Wisconsin is $57,311 a year, according to ZipRecruiter.
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Thank you for your support!
Wisconsin Literacy is a proud member of:
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211 S. Paterson St., Suite 170, Madison, WI 53703
(608) 257-1655 | info@wisconsinliteracy.org | wisconsinliteracy.org
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