Surigao City wins 2nd runner-up in literacy awards

Surigao City was adjudged second runner-up in the Local Government Unit category in the National Literacy Awards 2008 held on September 19 at Baguio City. The Surigao City team proudly received the award with Mayor Alfonso S. Casurra.

The team was composed by staff of the Department of Education Surigao City Division, City Parole and Probation Officer Alicia B. Espejon and some barangay officials.

As one of the development agendas formulated by Mayor Casurra’s administration, the mayor is determined to lessen up, if not eradicate, illiteracy in the city by providing the indigenous peoples and minorities, out-of-school youths and adults, parolees and probationers, and jail inmates a chance to learn and be functionally literate. Through literacy programs, they would be able to read to their children, fill out a job application or follow directions on a medicine bottle, or be useful and productive in the society they belong to.

Literacy promotion is a continuous program of Mayor Casurra complementing the city’s development direction to edify and empower its citizenry.

The National Literacy Awards was created by the Literacy Coordinating Council and the Department of Education in support of the national government's commitment to achieve the United Nations Millennium Development Goal of reducing adult illiteracy by half in 2015 and improving the quality of life of the Filipinos.

The National Literacy Awards has two categories, namely, the Outstanding Literacy Program Award and the Outstanding Local Government Unit Award.

The Outstanding Literacy Program Award is given to a literacy program being implemented by a non-government or civic organization and academic institution, which has evident positive impact on the learners and the community. The program should have contributed to the transformation of learners into productive and more responsible community members.

The Local Government Unit Award is given to one highly urbanized city, component city, municipal level Class A and Class B, which has developed policies, programs and projects advantageous to literacy development and which has made a constructive impact to the underprivileged of society and which affected the full functioning of democracy and the growth of the economy as a whole. (Karen T. Acero)

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