The World Literacy Crusade

The World Literacy Crusade (WLC) was founded by Baptist minister Reverend Alfreddie Johnson as a response to the civil disturbances that shook Los Angeles in 1992. The mission of the World Literacy Crusade is to establish community-based educational centers utilizing Mr. Hubbard's techniques, where members can gain the basic tools they need to become self-sufficient and employable.

“The WLC is where the rubber meets the road in terms of solving illiteracy problems in America,” Carolyn Staley, deputy director of the National Institute for Literacy, told the Christian Science Monitor. “They have gone outside the box of conventional approaches to give people the skills which will help them help themselves.”

Billy Wright had been living in a homeless shelter, abusing drugs and alcohol. He was functionally illiterate when he came to the WLC. In less than a year, he improved his reading comprehension to college level and obtained excellent scores on an entrance test for nurse training at a Los Angeles medical center.

The impressive results of the World Literacy Crusade have won support from both community workers and governments, as well as music legend Isaac Hayes, who has become a spokesperson for the center and school which services children and adults in the local community who want to improve their literacy levels while also delivering seven separate educational courses. In addition to this, the teachers in local public schools are benefiting from being trained onsite in Study Technology, while those who train at the program itself are able to credit their studies toward a college degree. In 2002, the program became the first Applied Scholastics entity to be certified as a postsecondary institution and opened the door for other Applied Scholastics schools to grant degrees.