UNESCO announces international literacy prize winners

IFACCA/Artshub,
22 July 2002, France

Cultural agency UNESCO has announced that projects and programs in Egypt, Eritrea, Uganda and Pakistan are the winners of its 2002 international literacy prizes, rewarding exceptional work in the fight against illiteracy. The US$15,000 International Reading Association Prize, established in 1979, has been awarded to the Adult Education Division of the Eritrean Ministry of Education, for its dedicated efforts during more than a decade of war and peace to establish self-learning through reading rooms and to teach women to read and write. An Honourable Mention in the category also went to Canada’s National Adult Literacy Database, for the production of high-quality internet-accessible literacy teaching material. Uganda’s Literacy and Adult Basic Education Project (LABE) won the US$15,000 Noma Prize, financed by the Japanese publisher Kodansha, for its program of literacy for development; while an Honourable Mention was given to Thailand’s Non-Formal Education Elephant Delivery Project, which employs elephants to carry teaching materials from one place to another. Meanwhile, one of the two $15,000 King Sejong literacy prizes, funded by the Republic of Korea, went to Pakistan’s Bunyad Literacy Community Council (BLCC), and the other to the Egypt-based Regional Centre for Adult Education (ASFEC) for its work in training literacy teachers. The Bunyad program aims to assist women and children working in carpet and football making factories to become more independent through literacy, while the jury was keen to encourage ASFEC’s model of co-operation between some 22 Arab-speaking countries. Honourable mentions in the category went to Spain’s Cartagena Adult Education Association Carmen Conde, mainly for its work with people of Romany descent, and to Japan’s Asia/Pacific Cultural Centre for UNESCO (ACCU), for its high-quality teaching materials in English. The winning programs will receive their prizes on International Literacy Day, September 8.