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Literacy Projects

Literacy Partners of Manitoba (LPM) is a charitable, non-profit organization.

Our projects and activities are made possible by grants, donations and fundraising activities.

LPM's funders and supporters include the federal and provincial governments, community foundations, businesses and individual.

These are some of our recent projects.

Community Plain Language Project (funded by The Winnipeg Foundation 2005-10)

In this project, we offer to non-profit organizations free or low-cost plain language training sessions and revision of documents intended for clients with low literacy skills. At the same time, we are developing a Plain Language Service for commercial clients.

The Literacy Strategy Steering Committee

(funded by the former National Literacy Secretariat)

In 2005 Literacy Partners of Manitoba approached Premier Doer to recommend two community-based individuals to its Literacy Strategy Steering Committee.  The committee consisted of literacy experts representing literacy programs, libraries, university and government.  Many meetings took place and a concept paper was developed (September 2006). Literacy learners and practitioners contributed to the final recommendations during a consultation in May 2007. This paper and the May 2207 input became the basis for recommendations that were presented in June 2008 during the provincial strategy consultations conducted by Adult Learing and Literacy a branch of Advanced Education and Literacy.

Improving Health Literacy (funded by The Winnipeg Foundation) 2004-05

This project provided resources to the literacy and health fields, including

• Going to the Doctor, a booklet and instructor's guide for use in the lilteracy classroom
• a patient prompt card, a wallet-sized folding card containing useful medical information and reminders to prompt inexperienced patients
• plain language revision of 25 documents, making them more accessible to clients with low-literacy skills
• virtual trunks, on-line resources for literacy and health practitioners

Click here for more information about this project.

Literacy and Health: Defining Links and Developing Partnerships

(funded by Health Canada) 2003.

In this project, we gave 16 one-day training sessions to literacy and health practitioners in Regional Health Authorities across Manitoba. We

• explained the links between low literacy and poor health
• encouraged literacy practioners to incorporate health topics in their curriculum
• showed health providers how to make theri documents more accessible to patients with low liteacy skills
• demonstrated other techniques for reaching "hard to reach" clients.

For more information, visit our project website at www.health.mb.literacy.ca