Welcome to the AOK Basic Skills Project
Support in ESL, Education, Family Nutrition
& Building Independent Learners through the SDG’s
Hello! I’m John Kirk, a semi-retired teacher based in Portland, Maine, and the director of the AOK Basic Skills Project. It’s my retirement project. AOK began as a volunteer education program in Quito, Ecuador, where I presented free workshops to over 1,000 participants from schools, universities, Red Cross organizations, police departments, Indigenous groups, a provincial ministry for the poor and the Ministry of Health.
Today, AOK is a free, online self-teaching website with several complete courses and materials for a number of workshops. It’s designed to expand access to basic education, ESL education and nutrition resources around the world. It’s initial priority is basic competence in the topic at hand, but its ultimate goal is to help create independent learners. It does this through its course updated 2026 course “Become Your Own English Teacher”. AOK is aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 2-Zero Hunger and 4–Quality Education and its workshop evaluations are designed to motivate the UN to provide related websites.
What AOK Offers
- Independent English Learning
Effective strategies using free online websites and study skills through the European Language Portfolio with CEFR/objective-based self-study. - Educational Support for Parents and Students from other countries
Free educational websites that can be translated in up to 30 languages for all ages with AI that can help students catch up to their classes, stay equal with them or get ahead. - Family Nutrition Education
The USDA has 3 monetary levels for consumption food, the lowest level being reserved for people on SNAP, or “Food Stamps”. SNAP currently has a yearly budget of about $110 billion. Using USDA figures with a simple 5 column food prep system for likes that uses whole foods, some plant protein, cooking ahead, standard conservation efforts, and sometimes one dish meals, people on SNAP could save the government significant money through their savings. Also, families with the median US income could save $3,000-$4,000 per year. It does this through its updated 2026 course “Healthy Foods for Busy People”.
Global Goals & Outreach
AOK workshops are aligned with two of the UN Sustainable Development Goals for 2030:
- SDG 2: Zero Hunger
- SDG 4: Quality Education
Voluntary and anonymous participant feedback is shared with the UN to advocate for expanded access to related multilingual educational websites. In the past 3 years, the AOK website has welcomed over 50,000 visitors from around the world.
To learn more, please look under the page title “AOK & UN” on this website at “Letter: UN” and “Start”.
It is hoped that the free educational proposals and workshops offered here can help supplement and expand on the efforts of aid programs everywhere.
John B. Kirk, Director
AOK Basic Skills Project
Portland, Maine