(VOVworld)- On Thursday, UNESCO presented the UNESCO King Sejong Literacy Prize to the program “Books for rural areas of Vietnam” of Nguyen Quang Thach.
Nguyen Quang Thach and children benefited from the programme (Photo: VNA) |
This is the first time Vietnam received UNESCO Literacy Prize. Speaking at the award ceremony, which took place on the 50
th World Literacy Day, UNESCO General Director Irina Bakova said World Literacy Day is a special occasion to honor one of UNESCO’s most important achievements. The prize winner was honored for their contributions to the community. Helen Adadzi is Head of the Jury Board: “We are extremely happy to have seen this initaitvie which has created thousands libraries. This is the way that Vietnamese people reached a high level of literacy and a high level of achievements. We want to congratulate the initiative and hope that Vietnam will rise to higher level of achievements”.
Nguyen Quang Thach can’t hide his happiness about receiving the prize: “I’m very happy because Vietnamese farmers changed their awareness after joining efforts to create a library system. This created a big change in the Vietnamese society. Farmers, civil workers, Vietnamese people inside and outside the country contributed to the program. This is an excellent product of the public sector and civil society which created a common goal for national growth”.
The UNESCO King Sejong Literacy Prize was also presented to the program “Patani Malay-Thai Bi/Multilingual Education Project” at the Mahidol University in Thailand.