The Universal Reading Foundation the first Polish organization to receive the US Library of Congress Award: Library of Congress Literacy Award 2024
The Universal Reading Foundation received an award from the United States Library of Congress for effective work on behalf of groups that are at risk of exclusion for various reasons. The Library of Congress Literacy Awards have been awarded for twelve years and select organizations through a precise selection process that can prove that they have made an extraordinary contribution to increasing reading in the United States or around the world. The ceremonial Gala of this year's awards will be held on October 30th at the United States Congress in Washington.
I am pleased to announce that the Universal Reading Foundation has been awarded the 2024 Library of Congress Award for Best Practices in Reading. The award recognizes your organization's achievements in promoting reading, developing innovative methods and practices in this field. In particular, we appreciate the Universal Reading Foundation's activities in the area of increasing reading among refugee communities, families with lower economic status and lower reading skills, and providing these communities with activities and materials appropriate to their needs. – wrote Carla Hayden, Director of the United States Library of Congress, in a congratulatory letter to the Foundation.
We are extremely happy, but at the same time we want to emphasize very strongly that we would not have received this award if not for the multitude of wonderful people, organizations and institutions that support us and cooperate with us. So we thank everyone and celebrate together! – says Maria Deskur, president of the Universal Reading Foundation.
Nominated organizations must write a series of short “essays” that answer very specific, sometimes detailed questions: What are the goals and methods of the nominated organization? What reading skills does the organization promote to achieve its goals? What role does the community of which the organization is a part play in the programs? What are the good reading practices of which the organization can be proud?
Nominees are also asked to describe their organization in terms of precisely defined evaluation criteria, which include: innovation, organizational stability, scalability and openness of programs to other organizations, research-based activities, measurable results and responsiveness to recipients’ needs.
Writing our application was a surprising experience, a bit like coaching without a coach – we were answering a decidedly great set of questions that make a person reflect on their actions, think about the foundations, goals, target groups, adequacy of methods and operational effectiveness. The Library of Congress assesses innovation and awareness of research and challenges around reading, but also the extent to which the assessed organization is able to stay on the market and really change something in this area. This professionalism of the candidate assessment is impressive. – emphasizes Maria Deskur.
The Universal Reading Foundation was founded in 2018 by publishers competing with each other on the market. The FPC statute obliges its board to work for reading in accordance with the following values: apoliticality, openness to cooperation, actions based on data and research, actions focused on building reach to achieve change, and reasonable management of resources. From the beginning, the Foundation has worked to popularize reading, thanks to which it eliminates social exclusion - because not reading is a social problem. The FPC vision is for every Polish child to be able to realize their full potential and have equal educational opportunities, and regular contact with books has a huge impact on this.
Today, Poles read little – 43% citizens reach for at least one book a year, and only 7% Poles read more than 7 books. These results need to be improved.
Therefore, FPC implements strategic actions at several levels of influence.
– helps excluded children – provides books to those who do not have them;
– supports parents – shows how reading changes the future of their children;
– trains leaders – trains mechanisms for encouraging reading, transfers knowledge;
– conducts analytical and research work – builds an environment of conscious leaders changing the reading landscape in Poland.
When we were trying to persuade our colleagues from the industry to establish a foundation six years ago, none of us dreamed that our activities would be noticed by the US Library of Congress. Incidentally, one of the first winners of the award was the Reach Out and Read organization, which has been a great inspiration for us from the beginning, and whose co-founder, Professor Barry Zuckerman, is now one of our Board of Trustees. Such an award is of course a powerful motivator for further action. Now we have to reach this level every day – adds Grzegorz Majerowicz, member of the FPC board.
Since 2021, the Universal Reading Foundation has been co-leading the strategic work of the Reading Poland Coalition, an informal association of organizations ready to cooperate for the sake of reading in Poland. We are very happy that the Polish organization has been noticed and appreciated by the Library of Congress. This is a great signal that the actions we take with a whole host of cooperating organizations are at a global level: that what we do makes sense; it is worth continuing. The awareness that we are on the right path gives a lot – both to us and our partners. It is a signal that we are heading in the right direction, towards the goal, which is to increase readership in Poland to 70% – concludes Katarzyna Konopka, member of the FPC board.
Reading is an essential factor in the development of Poland. Regular contact with books has a positive impact on the linguistic, emotional and social development of individuals and societies. It facilitates the achievement of school readiness, reduces the tendency to aggression, and enables the harmonious development of personality. By supporting reading, we build the foundations for the life success of individual children, and we also support the creation of a conscious civil society.
