Charlton Landon had always had a deep spiritual calling.
But learning to read and write took him from hearing God to knowing God.
Landon now works as a lay preacher with the Seventh Day Adventist Church in Victoria and he credits his work and study with Literacy Victoria over the past year with assisting him in bringing new meaning to the message of the Bible.
"With God by my side and me doing my homework and the way I have begun to speak, people began to understand me better," Landon, 58, said Friday.
Today is International Literacy Day and the people at Literacy Victoria like to think of it as celebrating the doors that are opened when literacy skills are strong.
"We do need to celebrate it as a skill, but it's also an opportunity to do so much more," said Jan Dupuis, literacy outreach worker with Literacy Victoria.
Sharon Welsh, learners network co-ordinator for Literacy Victoria, said being unable to grasp new opportunities means people without good literacy skills can end up trapped.
The agency assists more than 200 people a month in various initiatives to help with their reading and writing.
"We are seeing lot of men and women in their 50s who have owned homes, raised families," said Welsh. "And they have often done it on the backs of their bodies."
But when bodies give out or jobs disappear, they can end up destitute. The digital age, in particular, has made the requirements for literacy acute - for everybody, not just manual workers.
"Even people in sales, they have the gift of gab and they are personable," Welsh said, "but if you can't write, you can't do an email, or personalize it.
"I know one person who sent off an email and it came back all corrected," she said. "That was devastating."
Landon, originally from Jamaica, had immigrated in his mid-teens to Toronto and been almost immediately enrolled in a trade school to learn auto mechanics. He could read, but only slowly. His spelling and grammar were poor.
Between work and raising three children, he never had the chance to improve his literacy. He was also facing an extra hurdle in his heavily accented English.
For example, Jamaicans don't typically engage the past tense when speaking. So it's, "I go yesterday to the store" instead of "I went to the store." It can make writing more difficult.
But about one year ago, Landon started working one-on-one with a tutor at Literacy Victoria. Within a year, new doors started opening, including digital ones. "I had never had an email before."
He is now beginning to fulfil ambitions he traces to his early years in Jamaica.
"I knew two things: I wanted to serve God and I wanted to have a good education," Landon said.
To learn more about Literacy Victoria and other literacy programs, go to literacyvictoria.ca and learnnowvictoria.ca.
