Executive Summary

THE ENRICO CHARLES LITERARY AWARD

Executive Summary

The first award is to be held in the June 2010, for the most outstanding literary contribution to the promotion of disability awareness to the general public in a positive and inspirational way.

Objectives:

• To bring disability to the attention of the world of literature and, hence, the wider world.
  
• To bring knowledge of people, events and feats of incredible human capability to the attention of the media and the public around the world.
  
• To encourage social journalists, writers and publishers to see the coverage of disability in a new light, using a contemporary and popular style, such as those used to cover topics of general interest, e.g. celebrity gossip and tabloid stories.
  
• To achieve high public impact.

Through the coverage of the submitted work, which may be in the format of a novel or a piece of social journalism, it should be evident that the content and its treatment helps to achieve the overall aim of publicising both the needs and accomplishments of the disabled.

While writers from around the world have been publishing articles regarding disability, it is rarely, if ever, considered as a subject with its own merits and thus deserving of recognition.

The sheer number of people who are affected by disability is astounding and the way it is marginalized in some areas of the world today is outdated and must be changed.

Now with the number of NGOs, charities, health organizations, pharmaceutical companies and medical breakthroughs higher than ever before, more money is being spent on health than our society realizes.

The fact remains that accessible information about less welcome news is still shockingly low. The media is full of accounts of victims of disability or other distress, for whom adequate levels of information or appropriate care are not available.

The literary challenge is intended to bring to the fore what is already available, to remove the boundaries of exclusion, thus enabling and enhancing a society of proactive and positively informed individuals through the powerful medium of the written word.

It is hoped that this award will help by acknowledging the writers and journalists who already understand this need and consequently, spread awareness within the publishing world of a subject which it has been considered impossible to address.