Edna Freinkel has been honoured with the Continental Lifetime Achiever award for her dedication to fighting illiteracy amongst children and prisoners in South Africa.
Edna Freinkel has dedicated her entire life to improving the literacy levels of children and prisoners. Her fight against illiteracy has been really successful and has earned her multiple awards to date. She has been awarded the South African Presidential Award of the Order of Baobab for her lifelong dedication to the development of specialised learning methods, and in 2010 she received the Unisa Outstanding Educator Award.
Edna has now been awarded the Continental Lifetime Achiever Award for her dedication to the cause. Edna is in her 80’s and still, believes there is work to be done. Her passion for training people to read was rooted from her mother’s love of teaching.
“My mom was a teacher in the early 1920s with a special interest in the ‘lame dog’ struggling at the bottom of the class. She was light years ahead of her time in recognising the relationship between home and school performance.”
Her mother developed a method of teaching that transformed non-achievers into fluent readers. Once the method was perfected, Edna assisted her mother in converting the information into a manual.
Today, Edna continues to work with children and prisoners that are illiterate and to help people struggling with Dyslexia. Her Trust, Readucate, works to train inmates as teachers and help rehabilitate through reading.
“In prisons, literate inmates are trained as instructors so that they can teach illiterate offenders, which means the project has a greater reach and is more sustainable. Both groups become rehabilitated, which is why the Department of Correctional Services would like Readucate to operate in all prisons.”
The specialised methods teach people to read, write, spell, comprehend and memorise. The key is to teach people to study successfully.
“Even though South Africa is ranked as one of the most illiterate countries in the world, Readucate’s biggest challenge remains a desperate need for funding. Despite limited funding, Edna and her team have managed to train around 1 500 teachers and prisoners.”
“It has been roughly estimated that about a million children and adults have become fully literate through being trained by these Readucate instructors.” – Cathy Grosvenor, Rand Aid spokesperson
Edna’s passion for literacy has been passed down to her daughter Corinne Ossendryver. Corinne runs Readucate and helps Edna update the ‘Teach any Child or Adult to Read series’.
You can find out more about the programme here. Well done on your outstanding achievement Edna, you make South Africa proud!
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