DAVAO CITY (PNA) — Community leaders from various parts of Mindanao, Thailand and Pakistan gathered in this city early this week for a week-long joint capacity-building training on literacy development within the Asia-Pacific region.
Some 24 leaders representing various literacy resource centers (LRCs) in the three countries have come to the country to share their "best practices" to strengthen the fight against illiteracy, especially for girls and women in the region.
Organized by the Asia-Pacific Cultural Center for United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and Notre Dame Foundation for Charitable Activities Inc.-Women in Enterprise Development (NDFCAI-WED), the workshop is expected to boost the expertise of LRC members in project planning, social marketing, community mobilization, financial management and networking and linkages.
Cotabato Archbishop Orlando Quevedo, NDFCAI-WED chairman, said the workshop will "afford the participants a potentially rich learning experience of intercultural living."
Quevedo, also former Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) president, said the move aims to bring together stakeholders of literacy development through international networking, and will surely contribute to the achievement of the global aim of "Education For All."
This came as he pointed out that there is a new form of poverty — the poverty of learning.
Data from UNESCO revealed that 17 percent of the male population and 32 percent of the female population aged 15 years and above is illiterate.
