The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has once again extended its invitation to the Philippines, through the Department of Education, to submit its entry to the UNESCO International Literacy Prizes 2010 call for nominations. These UNESCO Prizes are awarded to government or government agencies, nongovernment organizations, or individuals in recognition of innovative and successful work in the field of literacy.
The country’s targetted entry to the UNESCO Prizes 2010 is the Dal-on Ta (regional term forlet’s deliver) literacy program of the Municipality of Tubungan, Iloilo, three-time first place winner in the LCC National Literacy Awards. Now a Hall of Fame awardee, the program has branched out to various Sagip (local term for save, assist; Assist the government toward its development) projects implemented in the different barangays of the municipality.
DAL-ON TA : Delivery of Assistance
towards Literacy on New Techniques
and Approches
The United Nations Literacy Decade theme for 2009-2010 is literacy and empowerment, thus the call for nominations particularly welcome “innovative and successful literacy projects and programs that specifically promote women’s empowerment in the social, economic, and political dimensions” for which Dal-on Ta exhibits and supports.
UNESCO awards two UNESCO King Sejong Literacy Prizes and two UNESCO Confucius Prizes for Literacy. The King Sejong Prizes give consideration to the development and use of the mother tongue languages while the Confucius Prizes to literacy projects that give attention to people in rural areas and the out-of-school youth.
Winners will receive their awards at the international ceremony organized by UNESCO on September 8, International Literacy Day. It will be recalled that in 2009, the Philippines’ entry to the literacy awards, Agoo, Kay-ganda of the Municipality of Agoo, La Union, won a Confucius Prize for Literacy.