The Library’s 2024 Literacy Awards recognized four top honorees from around the world for their work in promoting a love of reading, language preservation and literacy lessons in refugee camps, Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden said yesterday on International Literacy Day.
The year’s awards recognize work in six countries and in more than a dozen spots across the United States, showcasing the Library’s annual recognition of literacy efforts. In addition to the four top prizes, worth a combined $350,000, another 20 organizations were recognized for their work with smaller awards.
“I am encouraged by the work that this year’s winners and honorees have accomplished in helping people of all ages not only learn to read in a primary or secondary language, but also in inspiring communities to enjoy the practice of reading,” Hayden said.
The program’s $150,000 top award, the David M. Rubenstein Prize, went to the LaundryCares Foundation, an Illinois-based non-profit that has transformed hundreds of laundromats across the United States into learning spaces that encourage reading for children and families.
“This prestigious distinction will be a game changer for us and help us reach more children through our everyday spaces and places,” said Liz McChesney, the early childhood partnerships and community engagement director of LaundryCares.
The foundation was established in 2006 by the Coin Laundry Association in the wake of Hurricane Katrina as a means of helping under-served communities in the New Orleans area, in particular with providing spaces for children to read and learn. The effort now has some 250 laundromats across the country participating in their Family Read, Play, & Learn program. McChesney, the former director of children’s services at the Chicago Public Library, co-authored an article (“Soap, Suds, and Stories”) about the program in a journal of the American Library Association in 2020.
On the other side of the world in New Zealand, Te Rūnanga Nui o Ngā Kura Kaupapa Māori Inc., a network of schools, was awarded the inaugural $100,000 Kislak Family Foundation Prize for their work in preserving and promoting the Māori language, which was recently under the threat of extinction.
“This recognition underscores the transformative power of indigenous language, not just as a tool for education and literacy but as a means of intergenerational transmission that ensures our culture thrives across generations,” said Hohepa Campbell, chief executive officer of TRNKKM. TRNKKM’s work was recognized for having an outsized impact on Native language revitalization efforts in indigenous communities worldwide.
Just outside D.C., We Need Diverse Books in Bethesda, Maryland, received the $50,000 American Prize for supporting authors and illustrators with diverse backgrounds and helping them get their books published. “Imagine a world in which all children can see themselves in the pages of a book,” reads the front page of their website, summarizing their mission.
Finally, the Alsama Project in Beirut, Lebanon, received the $50,000 International Prize for implementing an effective curriculum that condenses 12 years of standard schooling into half that time and empowering Syrian refugee youth who are often left out of Lebanese schools due to low literacy skills.
The Library’s Literacy Awards Program, established in 2013 with Rubenstein’s support (and bolstered by the Kislak Family Foundation in 2023) has awarded 223 prizes, totaling more than $3.8 million. More than 200 organizations from 40 countries have been recognized for their work.
Nonprofit organizations, schools, libraries, and literacy initiatives from across the country and around the world apply for the awards every January. The 15-member Literacy Awards Advisory Board then reviews the applications before Hayden makes the final decisions.
This year’s other international honorees were in Afghanistan, Norway, Pakistan and Poland. There were 14 other U.S. honorees, ranging from locally focused efforts to nationwide campaigns.
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