British Association of Literacy in Development

BALID is a UK-based NGO operating as a voluntary organisation under UK law. We are tasked with promoting adult, family and community literacy and numeracy as a basic human right, in the context of international development. Please visit our BALID blog, which is full of interesting contributions from across the world.

BALID brings together practitioners and academics – literacy and language experts, students, early career scholars, NGO staff and policy consultants – in order to explore what this understanding of literacy might mean for social change and community empowerment. For more than a decade we have organised our lively series of Informal Literacy Discussions (ILDs). We depend financially on our members: please do join us if you can.

We are a global community of people keen to explore the relationship between literacy and international development, particularly among adults.

BALID offers a platform for effective dialogue between organisations and individuals who believe that sharing experiences about learning and literacy can enrich the lives of workers and citizens, whether in low-, middle- or high-income countries.

BALID Vision, Mission and Aim

Vision: That all adults are able to acquire and use an appropriate range of literacies for the benefit of themselves, their family and their community.

Mission: To promote an understanding of literacy as social practice through engaging with practitioners, researchers, and policy makers.

Aim: To be a global community promoting adult, family and community literacies and numeracy as a basic human right, in the context of development, to bring about social change.

Objectives

• To advocate a social practice view of literacy to be embedded into programming and policy-making.
• To encourage the strengthening of literacy practices across all sectors of development, (including health, income generation and environment) in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
• To support the professional development of programme developers and facilitators to incorporate a social practice approach to literacy.