This year's Literacy Awards named Nguyen Quang Thach and his "Books for rural areas of Vietnam" project. It is hailed for "applying research-validated practices to promote literacy" and as a model for other organizations and literacy initiatives.

Nguyen Quang Thach, founder of the Center for Knowledge Assistance and Community Development, spent 19 years studying library design and applying library models, with three libraries in 2007.

His program has received overwhelming support from local communities, particularly by engaging more than 100,000 people, mostly farmers, to join his initiative and help crowd-fund the libraries.

It has since provided training to the communities on how to run the libraries and hold activities to encourage reading. Thach wants to expand the progam to bring books to as many as 20 million people in rural areas by 2020.

Last year, Thachwas awarded the Sejong Literacy Prize by UNESCO for his fight for literacy.

VNA