From the IBBY website:
The IBBY-Asahi Reading Promotion Award, initiated by the International Board on Books for Young People and sponsored by the Japanese newspaper company the Asahi Shimbun, is presented to projects run by groups or institutions that are judged to be making a lasting contribution to reading promotion for children and young people. The Award is given every two years to two projects and presented to the winners at the biennial IBBY Congress. It was a difficult task for the current jury to choose two winners from the twelve nominations as all the projects were of great merit and complemented IBBY's Mission Statement. Each nominated project targeted children who live in disadvantageous circumstances with no or little access to books.
After an intensive discussion the jury made its choice from these twelve projects and we are pleased to announce that the IBBY-Asahi Reading Promotion Awards for 2010 go to: Osu Children´s Library Fund, Ghana and Convenio de Cooperación al Plan de Lectura, Medellín, Colombia
The Osu Children´s Library Fund (OCLF) is a Canada-based registered charity established 1991 to encourage reading and literacy among children and adults in Ghana, West Africa. To accomplish this, the OCLF raised funds to build, furnish and stock five large community libraries in impoverished areas of Ghana´s capital Accra, and a community library in Goi, a fishing village in the Greater Accra region. In addition, OCLF has helped to initiate and stock more than 150 smaller libraries in schools and villages in Ghana. The aim of the project is to instill in children, at the earliest possible age, the joy of reading and to enrich their self-esteem and broaden their horizons for the future. Not only children are taught reading and writing skills, but also adults and teens who have never had this opportunity. This will empower them to gain confidence and improve their job opportunities and thus their futures.
The 2010 jury comprised Jury President Hannelore Daubert (Germany), Anastasia Arkhipova (Russia), Nikki Gamble (Great Britain), Jehan Helou (Palestine), Ahmad Redza Khairuddin (Malaysia) and James Tumusiime (Uganda) The prize money of US$ 10,000 for each winning project will be presented at the 32nd IBBY Congress in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, at a special festive occasion on Friday, 10 September 2010. IBBY will celebrate the 20th anniversary of this special award at the Congress with a festive evening with the winners and representatives of the Asahi Shimbun.
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