This piece is not advocating illiteracy in any way, but must you kill yourself if you happen to be illiterate? While there is nothing desirable in being unlearned and an ignoramus, should heaven fall down because you are illiterate with no formal education?
World nations are trying their best to erase illiteracy and entrench basic education, but there are still millions of illiterates in the most developed countries of the world let alone in developing third-world countries. Illiteracy and ignorance are synonymous with poverty and backwardness, but this needn’t always be true.
If you are poor today, it is not necessarily because you are illiterate and unlearned, it is because you have not been too smart or have been a victim of the vicissitudes of life. After all, there are highly educated folks all over the world that still die poor or live wretched lives as a result of overwhelming poverty.
You will have a different story to tell as a typical illiterate if you’d only be smarter and innovative with your life – in fact, you can explore the realms of your illiteracy and make good money if you’d only be hardworking and creative enough to take the plunge.
1. Go into agriculture
Everybody eats, and they feed fom agriculture. The president, as well as prime ministers and even beggars on the streets, eat, and they all feed from agriculture. You don’t need the education to be a successful commercial farmer or agriculturist; you only need some portion of land and some knowledge of farming techniques to get up and running.
You can be a commercial or mechanized farmer and you can be a subsistent farmer cultivating food crops that feed millions of people, while also making millions of money from your venture.
2. Go into buying and selling
No one can completely produce all his needs; we need to rely on others for exchange to acquire other things. This is where profitable commerce comes in. You may be the most unlearned and uneducated person in your community and still be the most successful trader amongst your people.
The ability to buy and sell does not require writing and reading capabilities, it only requires you to add some margins to what you’ve bought and then resell for profits. Being the only trader supplying a wide variety of goods or retail wares in your community is the best way to become the most successful one in record time.
3. Go into craftsmanship
You don’t need a formal education to be a good basket or cane-chair weaver, and you sure don’t need school to be great at needlework. Learn a craft and make baskets, cane-chairs, furniture, sewn dresses, sculpted works, carvings, embroidery, hair-plaiting and hairdressing, shoe-making, and other household or personal items.
State presidents sit on furniture and wear shoes made by someone somewhere, and they have wooden carvings or ceramics and other sculptures made by someone in their homes. That person could be you.
4. Go into comedy
Thousands of people are now feeding fat from staged comedy shows, and they excel at it despite their education and manners. You are going to do well for yourself as a comedian if you can make people laugh, and also able to act or perform in certain ways that convey clowning. You may even find your way into movies if you’re good at it and able to crack jokes and make people reel in laughter in the most natural ways.
5. Teach something
You are not so useless as not to know anything or be able to teach something. Get paid to teach folks how to make crafts and get some other things like repairing fences, gardening, and freshwater fishing done. You can also get paid to teach the younger generations the culture and traditions of your people, while also teaching them the history and exploits of your forefathers.
Photo by Omotayo Tajudeen from Pexels