Moji giving literacy classes to herdsmen
Dr Moji Olateju held a Commonwealth Fellowship at the University of Birmingham in 2006. She spent her award
working on discourse analysis, researching the multimodal features of political billboards and other social contexts in Nigeria.
Her fellowship has broadened her research and teaching scope at her home institution, Obafemi Awolowo University, enabling her to modify courses and provide wider research supervision for graduate students.
Moji has been able to work for two years among some nomadic herdsmen in Osun State and she has succeeded in facilitating their involvement and participation in formal education. With some financial assistance from the International Reading Association she was able to build two temporary classrooms at the herdsmen’s temporary homestead and introduced experimental functional literacy classes.
Moji helping community members resolve issues
Some of the elderly and young herdsmen requested and received literacy instructions in English, basic instructions in mathematics, health and hygiene. The classes encouraged demand for western-style education for their children, and also enhanced their interpersonal communication. This has, in turn, led to reduced conflicts among the herdsmen and their neighbours.
