UNESCO announces winners of International Literacy Prizes 2017

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) on 30 August 2017 announced the winners of the 2017 International Literacy Prizes that honour excellence and innovation in the field of global literacy.

The UNESCO International Literacy Prizes are divided into two categories namely the UNESCO Confucius Prize for Literacy that is sponsored by China and the King Sejong Literacy Prize that is sponsored by South Korea.

Here are the winners of the 2017 International Literacy Prizes:

UNESCO Confucius Prize 2017
Confucius Prize recognises the projects that benefit rural populations and out-of-school youth, particularly girls and women. This year, the UNESCO Confucius Prize will be given to:

• AdulTICoProgram: This program was the initiative of the Secretariat of Information and Communications Technologies of Armenia (Colombia) for teaching digital competencies to seniors.
• The Citizens Foundation (Pakistan): The foundation was chosen for its Aagahi Literacy Programme for Women and Out-of-School Girls that includes digital educational needs assessments and provides teaching services to support the education of younger girls and older women.
• FunDza (South Africa): The organisation launched readers and writers project to develop a culture of reading and writing for pleasure through an online platform that provides reading courses and writing competitions.

King Sejong Literacy Prize 2017
The King Sejong prize is dedicated to mother-tongue literacy education. The winners of King Sejong Literacy Prize 2017 are:

• Centre for the Study of Learning & Performance (CSLP): The Centre at Concordia University (Canada) was chosen for its 'Using Educational Technology to Develop Essential Educational Competencies in Sub-Saharan Africa project'.
• We Love Reading (Jordan): This programme offers online read-aloud trainings for parents,  mobilizes volunteers to read aloud in community spaces to children.

All these five winners will each receive a medal, a certificate and USD 20000. The awards will be handed over to them on the occasion of International Literacy Day on 8 September 2017.