Teach a person to read and they have a powerful weapon they can use to help solve problems facing their community.

And from what I've heard from adult literacy teachers, people very much do want to learn. It's an enormous handicap and isolates you greatly.

Since written words were developed all the people who encounter them come to value reading as one of the most desirable skills a person can have. And in our world where being able to operate a computer is the difference between work and unemployment having a good foundation of reading skills is critical.