The IBBY-Asahi Reading Promotion Award was established in 1986 during the IBBY Congress in Tokyo and is sponsored by the Japanese Asahi Shimbun newspaper company. Until 2004 the Award was given annually to a group or institution whose outstanding activities were judged to be making a lasting contribution to reading promotion programmes for children and young people. Starting from the year 2006 the Award has been given biennially to two groups or institutions.
The nominations are submitted by the National Sections of IBBY and may include projects from any part of the world. The jury consists of members of the IBBY Executive Committee. The prize of US$ 10,000 and a diploma are presented to each of the winners at the biennial IBBY Congress
In 2006, the project Mongolian Children’s Mobile Library Project, nominated by IBBY Mongolia, and the project National Campaign ‘All of Poland Reads to Kids’, nominated by IBBY Poland were the two recipients of the Award.
In 2008, the project The Reading Promotion Project by Action with Lao Children, proposed by IBBY Japan, and Editions Bakame, Books for Children in Rwanda proposed by IBBY Switzerland, supported by IBBY Germany and IBBY Netherlands were given the Award.
(Detailed information about the award can be found on IBBY’s website: www.ibby.org)
