Return-Path: <nifl-4eff@literacy.nifl.gov> Received: from literacy (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by literacy.nifl.gov (8.10.2/8.10.2) with SMTP id i3M2OAm10014; Wed, 21 Apr 2004 22:24:10 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 21 Apr 2004 22:24:10 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <8e.8fd4d92.2db885aa@aol.com> Errors-To: listowner@literacy.nifl.gov Reply-To: nifl-4eff@literacy.nifl.gov Originator: nifl-4eff@literacy.nifl.gov Sender: nifl-4eff@literacy.nifl.gov Precedence: bulk From: MWPotts2001@aol.com To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-4eff@literacy.nifl.gov> Subject: [NIFL-4EFF:2743] New Readers of Iowa Meeting X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Mailer: 9.0 for Windows sub 5015 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Status: O Content-Length: 3394 Lines: 61 Posted on behalf of Archie Willard, New Reader of Iowa: About two weeks ago, The New Readers of Iowa came together at a planning meeting to plan their fall conference. We as adult learners in Iowa have a good track record with our conferences and we also have some history behind us. This will be our 15th consecutive new readers' conference. In the past we have had many different themes and each different conference has given the participants a small new piece that was missing in their lives. Piece by piece we have grown and as I look back I see much growth in these adult learners from Iowa. For some reason this kind of growth is not looked at or measured by research. Most of these adult learners are functioning well and are giving back to society and that makes these conferences worthwhile. At this meeting we had some guests. There were two people from Iowa Health System, one from ProLiteracy, one from the Iowa Community College system and 19 adult learners. If you have never been to a New Readers of Iowa planning meeting, it is something you will never forget. People speak out and they say what they think. It's a true democracy. Everyone does speak and as the moderator of the meeting I was worn out when it was over, but it was fun. We have been together for a long time and we understand each other. We support and help each other, we laugh together and we laugh at ourselves. At this meeting our guests looked puzzled and I think they were amazed at all the work we did and what we had accomplished in our meeting. The New Readers of Iowa have become a literacy family and I feel this will be a good conference. The Iowa Health System is working to bring awareness to medical professionals that there may be many people seeking medical help who have literacy problems. In the past year some of the Iowa new readers have worked with the Iowa Health System. We have come together to share our thoughts about health and about literacy and on how we can make things better for both groups. I don't know of any other two groups like this that are working together in this kind of partnership. This year's New Readers of Iowa Conference is called “Health and Literacy Working Together.” Statistics tell us that people with literacy problems have more health problems than the average person. We feel there is so much ground to cover in health literacy that we are having our second health literacy conference. We are hoping that a health literacy statement will come out of this conference from the adult learner's point of view concerning how our health care can be improved. Some people from The Iowa Health System will be assisting us in putting on this conference. We are also hoping to partner with others. We are asking others who live outside the state of Iowa if they would send their adult learners to this conference and if you are a literacy or health professional who is interested and would like to attend, please come. This conference will be September 10-11, 2004 at the Sheraton 4 Points Hotel in Des Moines, Iowa. If you want more information you can email me at millard@goldfieldaccess.net . Later, I will be posting more information on the VALUE page: http://literacynet.org/value/ Archie Willard New Reader of Iowa -- Archie Willard millard@goldfieldaccess.net URL - http://www.readiowa.org/archiew.html
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