The project aims to empower people experiencing illiteracy. Becoming familiar with authentic documents from a country that may not be your own (host country) is important. First, it's about being able to differentiate between document types: an advertisement, an invoice, an official summons, etc., and within the document, understanding where important information is located and what is incidental. Gaining autonomy to understand these different elements is very important: not systematically depending on a public service, an association, or relatives is an essential step in each person's emancipation and self-esteem. In fact, it's the feeling of being a full citizen in Europe that is reinforced by the implementation of the project. Ultimately, this project will contribute to the fight against illiteracy in German- and French-speaking countries and regions of the EU. Specifically, the objective was to reach 200 teachers and trainers, as well as 150 learners during the project, and then to have the opportunity to disseminate the results far beyond the six partners making up the consortium.
Experts estimate that illiteracy affects approximately 1 in 10 adults in Belgium and France, 5% in Luxembourg, and 12-15% in Germany and Austria. This affects both natives (e.g., people with cognitive difficulties, early school dropouts, etc.) and migrants who have had little or no opportunity to attend school elsewhere. The social impact is enormous and is worsening with the digitalisation of a whole range of services provided to the public: administration, banks, school contacts, etc. Educational tools aimed at these audiences are regularly considered inappropriate by professionals: they are based on tools intended for children (andragogy is not a vague concept, it is a real educational necessity), which do not take into account the individual's living and cultural environment (e.g., obsolete references, words used when an exercise dates from a time before the widespread use of the internet), which do not use authentic documents, etc. However, the world in which the people targeted by the project live is an environment where reading and writing skills are almost constantly required, with complex documents.