Puku Children’s Literature Foundation was recently awarded the 2021 UNESCO King Sejong Literacy Prize for its work on “Using digital technologies to promote children’s literature in South Africa’s indigenous languages”. 

But what is the UNESCO King Sejong Literacy Prize? Wikipedia describes it like this: “The UNESCO King Sejong Literacy Prize is an annual prize awarded to three institutions, organizations or individuals for their contribution to the fight against illiteracy.”

The  UNESCO  King  Sejong  Literacy  Prize  was  established  in  1989  by  the UNESCO Executive  Board through the generous support of the Government of the Republic of Korea. It was created to honour the outstanding contribution made to literacy by Sejong the Great who created the Korean alphabet Hangul. 

The purpose of the Prize is to honour the outstanding programmes of institutions, organizations and individuals  to  support  effective  literacy  practices and to and  to  contribute  to  the  promotion  of  dynamic literate  societies.  

This  Prize  gives  special  consideration  to  mother  language-based  literacy  development,  while  applying  a  broad  concept,  in  which  literacy  is  considered  as  a  continuum  of  learning and proficiency in reading, writing and using numbers, from a lifelong learning perspective.   The award comprises a silver medal, a diploma and a cheque.

Puku feels very honoured to be a recipient of this coveted award.

Credits
The image ‘gwanghwamun, sejong, gyeongbok palace’ is a free download from www.pikist.com