For many years Wim Sabel was one of the more than 13,000 residents of Bossche who cannot read and write. And that group is only getting bigger. The ex-illiterate chose to go back to school eight years ago and hopes that more low-literate people will do so. “A whole new world opened up for me,” he says. “I like that people are proud of me now, because they never were at home.”
Wim, 60, from Den Bosch had a difficult childhood and they were poor at home. He wanted to be at home with his parents as little as possible, but he didn’t like being at school either. “In kindergarten I wore cheap clothes and I didn’t get milk at lunch because the school fees had not been paid,” he says. “The kids in my class noticed that and that’s why I was bullied. I stopped going to school from group 2. Just like my five siblings.”
“I started at the kindergarten level when I was 52.”
Wim never learned to read and write. Until his 13th year, Wim could mainly be found on the street. Until he was offered a job in the oil industry. After the birth of his son, he started looking for other work. After several temporary jobs, he started working as a plumber. But there was fired because as an illiterate he could not keep up with the digital age.
“My father always told me that nothing would come of me. I kept that in mind for a long time.” The day after his discharge, Wim decided to go to school. “I wanted to learn to read and write well,” he says. “I really couldn’t do anything. I started kindergarten when I was 52.”
“I couldn’t use the car’s navigation system or my own cell phone.”
Wim can now read and write reasonably well. He manages to get a job again after school. Since then, the ex-illiterate has worked at a leak detection agency. “I have to find out where a damp spot or a leak comes from. Then I write in a report how handymen can solve that,” he explains. “I never thought I would do something like this before.”
In addition to his full-time job, Wim is fully committed to low literacy. He is an ambassador for the ABC Leer mee foundation, an organization that offers free language lessons. As an ambassador, he regularly explains to authorities what low literacy is and how you can tackle it.
In recent months Wim was allowed to contribute ideas about the book Why is Den Bosch Den Bosch? A special book for the illiterate to learn more about the history of the city. “I understand better than anyone what low-literate people do and don’t want,” he says. “I hope that it really helps low-literate people to read better,” he says.
“I love reading about my own city.”
Wim still has to work for more than six years, but after that he will devote himself fully to the low-literate. “Then I go to the teacher training college and then I explain to all the new teachers what to pay attention to in class,” he says. “Because when I tell my story to a group of twenty children, I find out exactly which children are having a hard time at home. Those children do not participate well at school, for example, because ‘they don’t understand it anyway’. I want to prevent that more kids grow up like me.”
