Illiteracy destroys the hopes and dreams of so many Indian people. Mission India has developed an effective literacy program that transforms students in a variety of ways.

Throughout India, there is a hunger for literacy. People in rural areas and slums, where literacy is the lowest, live with severe problems that come from their inability to read, write, or handle mathematical operations such as long division or the loan interest computation. Literacy gives these people new self-confidence. It opens doors for better jobs, better standards of living, and responsible citizenship.

Mission India has developed a 12-month, five-night-a-week, 2-hour-a-night literacy course designed for areas where literacy is low. This course is now available in 17 languages and can be effectively taught by instructors from depressed areas who have little formal education themselves. Approximately 85% of the students graduate at a fifth grade level (verified by a standardized test).

Components of Mission India's literacy program include teacher's training, teacher's manuals, a kerosene lantern (most classes are conducted at night), a class chalkboard, three primers for each student, slates and chalk for students, two Scripture books, and a post-literacy reader focusing on employment issues and income-generating projects. Students receive coaching in the formation of self-help groups, savings clubs, and/or prayer groups.

A literacy class impacts a student in so many ways:

• New self-confidence and dignity
• Ability to resist loan sharking or abusive bonding
• Understanding savings and interest
• Understanding measurements of volume, weight and length
• Formation of "self help" cooperatives
• Personally signing legal forms and ballots
• Ability to travel (reading street signs and bus schedules)
• Navigate through office buildings
• Computing fares and distances
• Ability to tell time on different kinds of clocks
• Development of family "income-generating" enterprises
• Ability to read government health pamphlets
• Improvement of personal hygiene (germ theory)
• Resisting alcoholism and substance abuse
• Encouraging school attendance for children
• Resisting abusive child labor and slavery
• Promoting community sanitation/health issues
• Offering advice on obtaining modern medical treatments
• Spiritual issues:
• Discussions about God's love and prayer
• Reading Scripture passages
• Emphasizing service to others
• And much, much more