International Literacy Day 2009
September 8, 2009, marks the annual International Literacy Day as proclaimed by UNESCO in 1965. Since its inception in 1946, UNESCO has remained a committed and dedicated champion of global literacy efforts. Yet, with over some 776 million adults lacking minimum literacy skills, literacy for all remains an elusive target.
What does literacy mean? The United Nations defines literacy as the ability to read and write a simple message in any language.
With the highest illiteracy rates found in the less developed nations of Africa, Asia, and South America; the lowest are in Australia, Japan, North Korea, and the more technologically advanced nations of Europe and North America. Using the UN definition of illiteracy, the United States and Canada have an overall illiteracy rate of about 1%. In certain disadvantaged areas, however, such as the rural South in the United States, the illiteracy rate is much higher.1
Literacy is at the heart of basic education for all, and essential for diminishing poverty, reducing child mortality, curbing population growth, achieving gender equality and ensuring sustainable development, peace and democracy.
You can participate in the International Literacy Day by organizing a marathon race, a 100-mile hike, a movie-fest in order to raise literacy awareness. You can blog about it, twitter it — but by all means remember the millions of illiterate children and adults who have not had the means to pursue a proper education. Find a charity and donate, or volunteer your services in promoting the building and managing of schools, raise funds to hire teachers, or teach the teachers if you are qualified to do so. Give back so that you may know how much has been given to you.
Increase literacy and you can increase self-empowerment!
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www.bloggersunite.org/event/international-literacy-day
through every child’s joy, adults will enhance their own joy!
1See C. Jeffries, Illiteracy: A World Problem (1967); F. Laubach, Forty Years with the Silent Billion (1970); H. Graff, The Literacy Myth (1979) and The Legacies of Literacy (1987).
2UNESCO
