`Khabar Lahariya` bags UNESCO Literacy Prize for 2009

United Nations, Aug 4 (PTI) Nirantar, a non-governmental
organisation, which runs "Khabar Lahariya" a fortnightly
newspaper in Hindi run by rural women in Uttar Pradesh has
bagged the prestigious UNESCO King Sejong Literacy Prize 2009.

Established in 1989 with support from Government of
South Korea, the annual award has also gone to Tin Tua's
Literacy and Non-Formal Education Programme in eastern Burkina
Faso, a UNESCO release said. The awards would be presented at
the UNESCO headquarters in Paris in December.

Announcing the award, UNESCO said "Khabar Lahariya"
meaning "news waves" of a UP NGO Nirantar has created a rural
fortnightly newspaper entirely produced and marketed by "low
caste" women, distributed to more than 20,000 newly literate
readers.

Its well-structured method of training newly literate
women as journalists and democratising information production
provides an easily replicated model of transformative
education.

The newspaper was launched in May 2002 and Tuesday the
eight-page fortnightly newspaper is a thriving and respected
concern with a readership of over 25,000 in more than 400
villages in the Chitrakoot and Banda districts of Uttar
Pradesh, UNESCO said. PTI