The Eastern Caribbean’s first Universal Emergent Literacy program has been officially launched.

The manual, titled Early Pages Program comes after a three-year pilot in Grenada and Nevis, and will immediately begin reaching some of the region’s most vulnerable students through dozens of preschools serving children ages 3-5.

An initiative of Hands Across the Sea, the Sandals Foundation helped to bring this important project to life through a USD $36,000 grant that fully funded the creation of a print and digital programmatic manual to support more than 500 preschools in the Eastern Caribbean -bringing much needed aid to thousands of children and educators in the region.

“The vision is for the manual to become a fundamental resource that empowers preschool teachers and Early Childhood Units,” says Amanda Sherlip, Executive Director at Hands cross the Sea. “We hope this will be a transformational early literacy program in schools and communities.”

The Early Pages Program (EPP) aims to raise childhood literacy levels and prepare children for lifelong success through 3 intentional actions: integrating literacy as an explicit aspect of the preschool environment; increasing parental engagement; and building awareness and community participation in early childhood literacy.

  Caribbean, Grenada, literacy, St Kitts and Nevis