Where and how did we begin? And who are the people we serve?

In March 1983, several people from Northern Rhode Island and southern Massachusetts, who were interested in helping new immigrants to the community learn to speak and to read English, attended a volunteer English as a Second Language Tutor Training workshop, sponsored by Literacy Volunteers of America, Rhode Island. From that workshop held at a local church in Woonsocket over 20 years ago, Project LEARN evolved.

First known as Literacy Volunteers of America - Northern Rhode Island and located at the Woonsocket Harris Public Library, our mission was to recruit and to train volunteers from the community to tutor adults with low level reading, writing, math, and conversational English skills. Although our name change to Project LEARN, Adult and Family Literacy Programs, Inc. in 2000 better describes who we are today, the one-to-one tutorial program remains the cornerstone of our adult literacy services. (LEARN, is the acronym for Literacy, Education and Resources Network.)

Project LEARN's metamorphosis over the past twenty years has been in response to the literacy needs of the adult learner community. Many of the adult learners enrolled in our classes or tutorials have the lowest levels of literacy and often the most barriers to learning. It became our mission to develop and implement innovative, comprehensive programs and research based instructional models that succeeded, where the more traditional models had not, and to assist adult learners to develop the literacy skills they needed to obtain, or retain employment.

Our location in the Woonsocket Harris Public Library beginning in 1984, and later at the Central Falls Free Public Library, assured community visibility, but limited our ability to offer classes and programs on site. As a result through outreach to the communities where our offices are located, strong partnerships with local human service agencies and school districts were developed, and classes and programs created, tailored to the needs of the adult learners we serve.

We offer a full range of adult literacy programs such as the Wilson Language System for adults with diagnosed or suspected learning disabilities, Family Literacy Programs, Accelerated Basic Skills and English as a Second Language classes, Computer Literacy classes, web-based Distance Learning and one-to-one tutoring in ESL and Basic Reading. To ensure successful completion of programs, case management and assistive technology is offered to adult learners who need additional support. There is opportunity for adult learners to serve on our Board of Directors and to participate in agency sponsored activities.

We were incorporated in 1993 as a non-profit organization and registered with the IRS as a 501C3 charitable organization in 1996.

Project LEARN is committed to providing comprehensive, research based, standards driven adult literacy programs that engage, instruct and empower adult learners to achieve their education, family, community and workplace goals.

We invite you to look at the programs and services pages describing our literacy programs in detail. We welcome your comments, or suggestions.