Bridge to Reading is the International Literacy Project of One Mission Society (OMS).
Our primary objective is to empower local churches to provide tutoring in reading, writing, and basic mathematics to teens and adults in the local church and surrounding community.
B2R works within OMS’ church planting networks and other discipleship and evangelism projects around the world. We work in countries with large populations of adults who have not learned to read. Bridge to Reading is a powerful tool of evangelism that offers literacy tutors many opportunities to share the Good News of Jesus Christ with their students.
We estimate that some 3,000 adults and teens currently are learning to read in the Bridge to Reading program in local churches in Colombia, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Burundi. About 73% of those participants are women.
Objectives
- Develop literacy curricula in local and regional languages to help adults and teens with a low level of literacy to function better as disciples of Jesus, church members, family members, and members of their communities.
- Share the good news of Jesus and provide resources that support evangelism and discipleship of new readers in local churches through literacy programs.
- Equip local churches to train and support volunteers to tutor people with a low level of literacy.
- Encourage churches to offer classes both to church members and to the surrounding community.
- Facilitate access to reading all written material, including the Bible, in local and regional languages.
- Facilitate translation of literacy training materials into languages that are used by local churches.
What we do
Bridge to Reading offers free literacy tutoring through local churches that are associated with the church multiplication program of One Mission Society. Classes are open to the members of the church as well as to the surrounding community so that they may learn to read in the language they speak and use with ease. Instruction in Bridge to Reading programs utilizes story-telling approaches and use of existing literacy primers developed by Literacy and Evangelism International.