Compton

Rev. Alfreddie Johnson and Isaac Hayes working with youth in Compton.

Rev. Alfreddie Johnson, a Baptist minister from Compton, California, worked for some years with young gang members and at-risk youth, helping turn their lives around. The 1992 civil unrest in Los Angeles brought home the need for more effective solutions that would make immediate and lasting changes in the lives of young people, families and the community.

Working with the secular educational organization, Applied Scholastics International, he incorporated a literacy program, the World Literacy Crusade, into his existing youth group. He was soon helping a very diverse group of individuals—from first graders, ex-gang members and homeless persons learning to read for the first time, to mothers training as tutors to help their own families. Volunteers worked with these people, finding their individual needs and using study technology to help them learn to read, understand and apply the information they studied.

“Education simply cannot be achieved unless a person can actually learn, and a person certainly cannot learn without being literate,” stated Rev. Johnson. “Our goal is to create responsible human beings who have the ability to learn and communicate in any subject. Only then can we envision eliminating the social ills of poverty, ignorance, disease, drug abuse, criminality and hopelessness.”

Children truly learn how to learn with Study Technology.

Orlando Lee is one man who changed his life through the Compton literacy program. He had been living on the streets for six years and had lost custody of his daughter who had spent her first two years on the street with him. “My ability to read was bad, about second grade level,” he said. “I was not able to use the letters to sound out words. In order to get my daughter back, I needed to attend a lot of courses on parenting, but if I had not learned how to read and how to study, I would not have been able to get through the classes.” After completing the literacy program, Orlando succeeded in getting a job and apartment, and his daughter was returned to him.

As the number of students grew from 45 to 200 in the first year, the number of tutors also increased as the students, wishing to help others as they had been helped, learned to be tutors themselves.

Hundreds of children have been helped by the World Literacy Crusade.

The World Literacy Crusade continues to tutor students in Compton in its own center while assisting area public schools to help their most at-risk students.

Just north of Compton, Lynwood Unified School District selected two schools most in need of improvement. Working with the principals of these schools, the World Literacy Crusade provided community volunteers to go in and assist the students who were having the worst difficulties.

The volunteers, trained in L. Ron Hubbard’s study technology, were sent into the schools. After 5 weeks of tutoring daily for 2 hours, reading and math scores improved an average of 1 to 2 grade levels. The principal of one of the schools said, “Seeing the positive results first hand of this program led me to encourage and request that all students in the district be given this brilliant opportunity to improve their quality of education and thereby the lives of our future generations.”

To find out more about L. Ron Hubbard’s study technology, click here.