This short, readable history of our organisation was published in 2007 to help celebrate the 30th anniversary of Literacy Aotearoa Dunedin. The book is based on a series of interviews with key people in our organisation's history, including New Zealand adult literacy pioneer Rosalie Somerville, who inspired concerned tutors to form adult literacy groups all over the country in the 1970s.

Moving through key moments in the organisation's history, this book covers a range of topics, such as the early development of local literacy programmes, including in Dunedin prison; the relationship between adult literacy and Otago Polytechnic; the rise of national adult literacy organisations and the impact they have had in Dunedin, local developments in fee-for-service and workplace literacy, and a glimpse into the future of adult literacy. The book also includes fine examples of student poetry and artwork, and a group interview with a contemporary women's literacy class.

The following extract is from the interview with Sr Mary de Lourdes who ran the prison literacy programme from 1978 to 1992:

' I found they needed a lot of help. I stayed on there for years doing that. It was a very good adult literacy situation... I didn't realise so many people really needed more encouragement after they had left school. The younger men down there (at the prison) had left school because they couldn't be bothered... Didn't even get their School Cert., and that was important. They needed something to keep them busy, otherwise they'd tear all the mattresses and things to pieces, scribble all over the walls. It made me realise... that that's why some of were there: because they couldn't read. They didn't know what steps to take to get out of their situation.
Well, I got some of them and I said, 'What would you like to do?' I said, 'Let's do a subject at School Cert. What about it?' Well, before I was finished I was doing automotive engineering; I was doing painting and decorating; I was doing art. I was doing every subject you could think of... I had great success with some of those (men)...'