We saw the 14,140th child enter our programme and benefit from the one-on-one attention and care of our Volunteer Reading Helpers and Literacy Tutors.

Operationally, 2016 was a very important year. A staff and stakeholder strategic review in September re-established a powerful “Preferred Future” vision, and kicked off the process of internal restructuring to establish an optimal programme environment, one positioned for growth and success. As you will have read, our activities are increasingly well defined and focus on three programmatic areas of activity, each supported by a drive to secure the resources and reading spaces to support our learners.

This process laid a strong foundation and 2017 has already started at a pace that will see us achieve significant growth goals for the year, welcoming new team members in programme activity in both Gauteng and the Western Cape, expanding our external partnerships programme in communities, universities and children’s homes and implementing extra-mural reading club sessions to promote child, family and community literacy in our communities.