UNESCO Hands Over Community Learning Centres

According to the latest data revealed by UNESCO, there are still 123 million illiterate youth (15-24 years old) in the world today, and two-thirds of them are young women. While these rates are closely associated to socio-economic setbacks such as poverty, health conditions, the life expectancy rate of new-born children, and gender disparities, there is an urgent need for a more practical and modern approach to delivering literacy. "Literacy is much more than an educational priority – it is the ultimate investment in the future and the first step towards all the new forms of literacy required in the twenty-first century", stated the Director-General of UNESCO Irina Bokova in her annual message for the occasion.

For over 40 years now, UNESCO has been celebrating International Literacy Day by reminding the international community that literacy is a human right and the foundation of all learning. Within the framework of the Literacy Initiative for Empowerment (LIFE) project, UNESCO is providing technical assistance and capacity building for relevant Iraqi governmental bodies and local NGOs, enabling them to design and implement inclusive and effective national literacy programmes in order to reach the Education for All (EFA) goal of halving illiteracy by 2015. UNESCO has been an integral contributor to the development of the National Literacy Strategy headed by the High Commission for Literacy, which called into being the Iraqi National Literacy Campaign. The Campaign has thus far targeted over 495,000 illiterate Iraqis, with another 500,000 illiterate students expected to begin classes this month in over 5,000 literacy centres around Iraq.

(Source: United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq)