KFC Egypt Launches Feeding Minds Youth Literacy Program on International Literacy Day

KFC Egypt is feeding people’s potential with a powerful new program— KFC Feeding Minds Youth Literacy Program which supports literacy and lifelong learning to empower underserved communities in the Middle East and North Africa.

Rolling out just in time for International Literacy Day 2023, the program is funded by Yum! Brands’ Unlocking Opportunity Initiative, a $100 million commitment over five years to tackle inequality through three focus areas: equity and inclusion, education, and entrepreneurship.

In partnership with ProLiteracy and the Anba Moussa Al-Aswad Association (ANBA), the joint project goal is to strengthen core literacy skills in more than 600 at-risk youth, aged 12–20, over the next three years. It’s part of KFC’s approach to social purpose and wholly aligned to the pathway we’re on to build skills and unlock opportunities.

Though progress is happening, challenges continue worldwide—with more than 763 million young people and adults lacking basic reading skills in 2020—exacerbated since then by COVID-19 crisis, climate change and global conflict.

Each year, International Literacy Day shines a light on this urgent global need. Literacy matters. It’s also the cornerstone of a just, inclusive and sustainable world, and we still have much work to do as an international community.

So, for starters, this project will raise awareness about the importance of education in Ezbet Khairallah, a section of Cairo where more than one million people struggle in poverty. The dropout rate there is 30%, with girls representing two-thirds of that number due to issues, such as low literacy, early marriage, unemployment and a lack of adequate healthcare facilities.

The Feeding Minds program will target the most vulnerable members of our next generation to help build the basic literacy skills they need to stay in school, enter the workforce, raise children of their own, and break the cycle of poverty in MENA and beyond.

“The ability to read is the key to the door of the world,” said ProLiteracy Co-founder, Dr. Frank C. Laubach, “and through it, to a world of understanding, instead of fear, hate and superstition.”

Dr. Frank’s proven method, Laubach Way to Reading, which has been translated into Arabic, will provide the foundational curriculum for this pivotal program developed to create a better, more equitable world through literacy.

Join us as we celebrate International Literacy Day 2023—and Feeding Minds the KFC way.