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by Maria Driscoll

The Canadian Association of Community Education (CACE) recently announced Don Anderson, an adult educator with the Institute of Adult and Community Education of Holland ¼â½ÐÊÓƵ, as this year's recipient of the Community Educator of the Year Award.

This award is presented annually to a Canadian educator who exemplifies the beliefs and ideals of the Association, in recognition of outstanding personal contributions to the field of community education. The plaque was presented at an awards ceremony held recently in Montreal in conjunction with the CACE annual conference.

"Adult Education and Community Education are at the very heart of healthy, sustainable communities," commented Mr. Anderson. "PEI presently enjoys a top quality, widely accessible adult education system, and I am proud to have played a role in its development. To be given such a national honour is humbling, especially coming as it does from my peers in community education across Canada."

Mr. Anderson has spent most of his career with Holland ¼â½ÐÊÓƵ serving initially as a classroom instructor in a variety of adult education programs in the Summerside area; then as Chair of Continuing Education, Chair of Vocational Training, and as provincial Director of Adult and Continuing Education. He recently spent two years with the PEI Department of Education as Community Education Coordinator, assisting with the development and implementation of the provincial literacy and adult education strategy which resulted in the establishment of an open and accessible adult education system in a number of community learning centres across the province.

"On behalf of Holland ¼â½ÐÊÓƵ and our Institute, I want to congratulate Don on this very special occasion," stated Albert Fogarty, Executive Director of the P.E.I. Institute of Adult and Community Education. "He has made a very significant contribution in the area of adult literacy and academic upgrading in this province and remains strongly committed to the principle of life long learning."

Mr. Anderson is a past president of the PEI Literacy Alliance and the PEI Association for Adult Education. He has also served on a number of other boards and associations including the Atlantic Community ¼â½ÐÊÓƵs Working Group for Interprovincial Cooperation, the National Adult Literacy Database, the Children's Wish Foundation and the PEI Heart and Stroke Foundation. He currently represents Prince Edward Island on the Canadian Association for Community Education board of directors.

CACE is a national association dedicated to the advancement and promotion of learning for individual and community betterment. It promotes the use of community learning, resources, and research to bring about community change, and the recognition that people can learn through, with, and for each other to create a better world.