Learner profile: Lynda Richards, past literacy learner. Current position: Board President and Learner Coordinator for the Saskatchewan Literacy Network (SLN)

“Seeing the trees and the stars”

Lynda Richards, past Board President and a Learner Coordinator for the Saskatchewan Literacy Network (SLN), has traveled a great distance in the past fifteen-plus years. Back in 1990, she admits that she was – and she doesn’t mince words — at the very bottom.

I was in detox, then ended up in a psychiatric ward. I was very depressed. I was raising a child on my own. I was on social assistance.

And what perhaps hurt the most was that the 10-year-old daughter she used to pretend to read books to when she was very young was growing up fast and didn’t want to spend as much time with her mother anymore.

It is a story played out among thousands of people, thousands of times across Canada. But this one has a happy ending. With the direction of counselors and the encouragement of other learners who were also challenged with low literacy, she enrolled in a literacy organization in her community, and she completely turned her life around.

I’m the kind of person that if someone says I can’t do something, I get my back up.

For a lot of years, a good many people told Lynda she couldn’t do things. Now they marvel at how much she has accomplished.

She has achieved great success in business, operating the food services at Swift Current’s Comprehensive High School and buying an ice cream parlour in Gull Lake. She has also participated in learner committees at the local, regional and provincial level, advising organizations on literacy practices and program implementations. Described by peers as a tireless volunteer and a passionate spokesperson for literacy, Lynda has accomplished so much that she received the 2005 Council of the Federation Literacy Award for Saskatchewan.

Lynda does so well in helping other people who are challenged with literacy because she has been in the place where many of these learners find themselves. She dropped out of school and left home when she was in seventh grade. When she went back to school at age 39, “[those early years] being told I was stupid — it all came back to me,” she says. But she was treated well by the learners support group she joined and that steeled her to face her own challenges.

My life is totally turned around.Today, it’s great to get up and look in the mirror and say, ‘It’s great to be alive.’ I can see the trees and the stars and the forests now. I notice those things now.

Lynda is active in the community as well, sharing her story and encouraging adults and young students to enhance their literacy skills.

Her story is a compelling one for all who listen.

My life has changed dramatically for the better. I have more confidence and I am not afraid to take risks.

Reading to her grandchildren, running her businesses, engaging with so many learners across the country, enjoying a strengthened relationship with her daughter, who also went back to school and got her grade 12 diploma, all contribute to her new outlook on life.

I believe that this would never have happened if I hadn’t gone back to school.

Lynda is one of a number of learners profiled in ABC CANADA Literacy Foundation’s 2008 Family Literacy Calendar. To download, go to 2008 Calendar

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PHOTO CREDIT: B. Van Leuken/ The Canadian Press Images