By Anna-Maria Korell From Rotary Club of Calgary North

SPEAKER AUGUST 31, FAYE LIPPITT

David Thompson introduced Faye Lippitt who told us a bit about Literacy in The Cayman Islands.

Born and raised in Calgary, she and her husband Greg now live to the Cayman Islands and Fay visits us today from the Grand Cayman Sunrise Rotary Club. Though the population of Cayman is only 50,000 there are three rotary clubs there.

Passionate about literacy, Faye serves on Sunrise Rotary Club’s literacy arm, an organization called LIFE (Literacy Is For Everyone) which promotes literacy in the Cayman Islands.

Fay shared that because there is no taxation in the Cayman Islands and a great number of expats there, the government decided to separate the school systems into public for locals and private schools for non-locals. Unfortunately, the current public school system has deteriorated in recent years with the greatest challenges being in the areas of literacy and discipline. As a result, most senior high students still only read a grade 3 level. She explained that simply improving literacy skills for the local population will affect the entire region as Cayman law requires that locals always be considered first for jobs.

Fay also treated us by reading an excerpt from her book Sixteen Chickens On A Trampoline, a rebirth of her column from Farm Life Magazine. The stories chronicle the chaos of everyday life while raising a family of 6 (including 2 sets of twins) on an acreage south of Calgary.

Copies of Faye’s book are available for purchase. All proceeds from the sale of her book go to LIFE through her rotary club. Check out her website for more info. 16chickens.com. Her book is also available online at Amazon. http://amzn.to/1yk2HNR

David thanked Faye for her presentation, they exchanged banners and a donation was made to Rotary Challenger Park.

For more on this story go to: http://rotaryclubofcalgarynorth.com/Stories/literacy-in-the-cayman-islands#sthash.PezT4Tiq.dpuf