All Children Reading: A Grand Challenge for Development Announces Winners of Literacy Innovations Competition

WASHINGTON, DC (February 3, 2015) – The All Children Reading: A Grand Challenge for Development (ACR GCD) partners are pleased to announce 14 new grantees in 2015. Winners represent the most promising, creative and impactful solutions in literacy innovations and were chosen from a competitive process that elicited 213 proposals from 50 countries.

“More than 250 million children across the globe cannot read or write, representing a quiet crisis that is casting entire communities into a cycle of extreme poverty,” said USAID Administrator Dr. Rajiv Shah. “Through All Children Reading, we are rallying a global community of innovators to develop groundbreaking solutions to illiteracy — and in doing so, giving the world’s most vulnerable children a chance to seize their potential.”

Over the next two years, ACR GCD will follow the innovators’ progress as they implement their new idea by addressing the following three focus areas of ACR GCD Round 2:

Mother tongue instruction and reading materials

• Agora Center, the University of Jyväskylä – Zambia: Introduce GraphoGame™, a science-based eLearning environment for literacy and teacher training.
• Creative Associates International – Zambia: Develop a community-based, scalable model for using mobile technology to create and disseminate mother tongue reading materials to families with early grade children.
• Kampuchean Action for Primary Education – Cambodia: Develop mother tongue instruction and reading materials, with electronic readers having interactive features for Grades 2 and 3 readers.
• Little Thinking Minds – Jordan: Build a child-centered, leveled and differentiated ICT-based Arabic literacy program consisting of leveled e-books and associated mobile applications that can supplement traditional school-based learning at home or in the classroom.
• Réseau d’Acteurs pour le Renouveau de l’Education – Mali: Use mobile technology to improve the teaching and learning of reading and writing in bilingual curriculum schools.

Family and community engagement

• ChildFund International – Afghanistan: Transmit radio messages and stories to families of struggling readers, using solar-charged mobile phones.
• Oeuvre Malienne d’Aide à l’Enfance du Sahel – Mali: Use Stepping Stone, a low-cost mobile lesson creation tool, to determine how access to interactive digital audio and texts might enhance pre-reading and reading skills.
• Qué Funciona para el Desarrollo A.C. – Mexico: Introduce MATCH, a book-leveling technology-based platform that provides children and their parents with a selection of Spanish-written books that are tailored to the child’s reading level and coincide with his/her topics of interest.
• Sesame Workshop India Trust –India: Strengthen family and community engagement in promoting mother tongue reading skills among early primary grade children.

Children with disabilities

• Benetech – India: Create texts in local languages by developing accessible audio books paired with the most current braille-focused reading methods.
• Catholic Relief Services – Lesotho: Improve the reading outcomes of children with low vision/blindness through the use of the Mountbatten Pro Brailler (MB Pro) and the Jot-a-Dot portable Brailler.
• Institute for Disabilities Research and Training, Inc. – Morocco: Develop computer software that enables educators to efficiently create instructional materials with Moroccan Sign Language graphics.
• Resources for the Blind, Inc. – Philippines: Train and develop technology for the Department of Education to create and upload accessible versions of supplementary reading proficiency materials, and provide equipment needed by students with low vision/blindness to access reading proficiency materials in accessible formats.
• Studio ADC – Georgia: Develop and test electronic versions of books and learning materials for children who are deaf/hard of hearing.

The public is invited to the USAID headquarters in Washington, D.C. on February 6 to meet the grantees and learn more about their innovations.

Date: Friday, February 6, 2015

Time: 11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. (EST)

Location: Horizon Ballroom, Ronald Reagan Building
1400 Pennyslvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20004

Event details and RSVP.

All Children Reading: A Grand Challenge for Development was established in 2011 as a partnership between USAID, World Vision and the Australian Government. The partnership is soliciting creative, cost-effective innovations to improve reading for children in early grades. Round 1 funded the testing of 32 early-grade literacy innovations working in 22 countries with a focus on teaching and learning materials and education data.

For more information about the awardees and their innovations, visit www.AllChildrenReading.org or follow them on Twitter @readingGCD.

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About World Vision:
World Vision is a Christian humanitarian organization conducting relief, development, and advocacy activities in its work with children, families, and their communities in nearly 100 countries to help them reach their full potential by tackling the causes of poverty and injustice. World Vision serves all people regardless of religion, race, ethnicity, or gender. For more information, please visit www.WorldVision.org/media-center/ or on Twitter @WorldVisionUSA.

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