Minor miracles of personal transformation have been taking place via a family literacy programme run by the Foundation for Educational Services (FES).

"Parents who took part in the programme in order to better support their child's learning and growth have started to realise that they, too, are learners. They have been finding out that learning has no limit or boundaries," recounted the foundation's chief executive Nora Macelli at a conference last weekend.

Initially, she said, parents joined the programme, called Klabb Hilti, for the sake of their children. "Now they do so for the sake of their children as well as for their own sake. Parents are now clamouring for more opportunities to increase and enhance their learning..."

The conference, organised by the FES, was titled Lifelong Learning through Parental Involvement in Education. It dealt with an EU-supported project called Parent Empowerment for Family Literacy (PEFaL), which has allowed the FES to export its Hilti brand of programme to Belgium, England, Italy, Lithuania and Romania.

Basically, the programme as organised in Malta took the form of basic skills sessions held in a number of government schools during which nearly 300 parents learned how to boost their children's literacy development at home. Some sessions were held for parents alone and others alongside their children.

Some of the parents who spoke at the conference testified to the impact the programme has had not just on their children - allowing them, for example, to become more assured and competent readers - but also on themselves.

"It changed my life," said Brigitte Galea, whose children go to the Birkirkara primary school.

She told me after the conference that taking part in the programme had spurred her on to become involved in other educational initiatives, such as joining a story-telling group at her local library.

Within the foundation, she has become one of the 70 "parent leaders", responsible for speaking to other parents to find out about their needs and helping to run courses aimed at addressing those needs. Last year she even joined other European parents in Vienna to devise a programme for educational support leading to parental empowerment.

She has also taken part in the foundation's Young Writers' Club with her young daughter - and discovered an aptitude for writing that she never knew she had. Since then she has written poems, plays for children, a journal and letters to the newspapers.

Indeed, in terms of her personal development, Ms Galea, "having now had another taste of studying", wants to go much further. She has done a basic computer course organised by her local council and wants to obtain the more advanced ECDL certificate. She has set her sights on going to university when her children grow up and her dream is to write a book for children.

"I used to be asleep and now I've woken up," was how she described her new outlook on life. "Many parents have had similar experiences. We have PEFaL and the FES to thank for it."

And the ripple effects don't stop there. As an offshoot of the Klabb Hilti programme, the FES developed another one called Id f'Id. This is aimed at giving parents - via other parents - the skills to nurture their child's and their own learning and growth, become more actively involved in the school and local community, and to be "agents of change" among other parents. The whole intention is to help the parents become lifelong learners.

Victor Galea, the programme coordinator, said more than 800 families had been helped in one year through one of the initiatives falling under the programme - courses given by parents for parents all over the island.

The themes of the courses, chosen by the parents themselves, included instilling the love of reading in children, increasing their self-esteem, helping them to manage time, helping them in English, maths and with their homework, as well as teaching them how to create effective communication with the school.

In an initiative that may be unique in Europe, the parent leaders who came together for a training seminar held parallel with last weekend's conference worked on a "parental lifelong learning portfolio" that will document their individual achievements in parenting and education.

Developed by Mr Galea with feedback from the parents, the portfolio will also be used to plan what they're going to do next to further their self-development. Besides giving a boost to their self-esteem, it would even enhance their employment prospects, Mr Galea said.

FES chairman Kenneth Wain, an expert in lifelong learning, said the foundation's aims had become more and more ambitious over the years. Its original objective was mainly to provide for children at risk of school failure, particularly those with serious literacy problems, through the involvement of their parents. Parents were then regarded mainly as a means.

"We quickly came to see parents as ends in themselves; as persons with needs and with a right to education of their own, independently of their role as parents. Persons in need not just of the skills to teach their children and to help them with their work, but of personal, social and political skills also, the skills of empowerment that would render them effective partners in the school, in the broader educational system and in the community."

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