First Literacy grants provide seed funding for Adult Basic Education and ESOL organizations to explore ideas that have the potential to elevate learning for adults across Massachusetts. These pilot programs address needs that are often “unfundable” through other means.
How Mujeres Unidas Avanzando (MUA) Is Helping Adult Learners Reach a Major Milestone
Students in the ¡Sí, Se Puede program celebrate graduation in June 2025.
During the 2024-2025 academic year, Mujeres Unidas Avanzando (MUA) received a First Literacy grant for ¡Sí, Se Puede! (Yes, You Can!). Funds from the grant were used to create a program to support students who require one more exam to attain their high school equivalency diploma. These students were identified by MUA as capable but unable to continue with the traditional MUA program due to external issues. ¡Sí, Se Puede! provided those with challenging individual needs with a weekly class, practice exams, resources, motivation, and coaching to pass that last exam and obtain their high school certificates, ultimately leading to their next step.
Caitie Shalvey, Director of Operations and Education, led the MUA pilot program and described it as “[meeting] the students where they are, for those for whom the traditional K-12 system was not successful and who had separated from MUA due to personal obstacles and programmatic barriers.” While there were challenges meeting the needs of this specific group of students, such as accommodating diverse work and child-care schedules, the funds provided gave educators time to adapt the delivery model by providing one-on-one instruction alongside group sessions and Saturday instruction to ensure students stayed on track.
“The [First Literacy] funding enabled MUA to take a step back so to speak and work on making MUA and the field as a whole better, one small project at a time.” – Johannah Malone, Executive Director at MUA
While ¡Sí, Se Puede! was a small program, it was successful. MUA celebrated the perseverance and success of several long-time students who reached major milestones this year in completing their HiSET exams. In addition, based on lessons learned with the First Literacy Innovation Grant, MUA plans to leverage their achievements to apply for funding from corporations and foundations to continue and strengthen this impactful program.
First Literacy Innovation Grants offer community-based Adult Basic Education programs the opportunity to explore classroom concepts that immediately address issues in their neighborhoods. The ¡Sí, Se Puede! pilot received just over $4,500 from First Literacy. In addition to this program, First Literacy awarded funding to five other organizations during the 2024-2025 academic year – distributing a total of $40,661 in grants. These programs impacted over 700 adult learners throughout Massachusetts.
*To explore the 2024–2025 grant recipients, please scroll to the bottom of the Grant Funded Projects page.