The Excellence in Literacy Foundation is a partner organization of Sage Youth - Jeunesse Sage www.sageyouth.org.
Sage Youth - Jeunesse Sage is a registered charity that was founded in 1992. Its mandate is to provide free literacy and mentoring programs to high-need children and youth. Students are from financially disadvantaged, new Canadian and/or refugee families. Many have special needs. Over 5000 children have been given the gifts of literacy, hope and a possibility for the realization of their dreams with the support of Sage Youth staff and over 1300 volunteer tutor/mentors.
Many organizations across Canada and the world developed an interest in this successful, efficient and cost-effective style of intensive literacy instruction. In order to enable the successful replication of these literacy programs, ELF and Sage Youth staff and volunteers worked to create a series of 17 workbooks, a Program Model and several training booklets.
Over the past three years, the ELF has provided training, materials and small grants to 50 community organizations and schools across Canada in order to assist them in the development of their own children's English literacy initiatives. ELF-supported programs have served over 6000 children, predominantly from First Nations, new Canadian and financially disadvantaged communities, from British Columbia to Labrador and north to the Northwest Territories.
In 2004, two outstanding volunteers took our program method and materials with them to orphanages in Ghana and Thailand