NEWS, VIEWS & OTHER INTERESTING THINGS

On 14 February, we celebrated International Book Giving Day, commemorating the joy of giving and the treasure of owning a book.

This year, we commemorated International Book Giving Day by gifting each learner on our programme with a brand new book. The day perfectly coincided with Valentine’s Day, and what better way for us to show love than by gifting books! Many of the learners that we work with don’t own or have access to engaging reading material at home, which is a crucial element in raising strong readers.

In the build-up to International Book Giving Day, we launched our first book giving at Wemmershoek Primary in January, and since then have invited Volunteer Reading Helpers to browse our selection of books and choose one special book to give to each of the learners that they assist.

On the day, our teams held Book Giving Day celebrations at various partner schools in Gauteng and the Western Cape. Our Johannesburg team was joined by help2read Founder and Chairman, Alex Moss, and his wife Mai, who visited our new partner school, Diepsloot Primary 4 in Diepsloot, to celebrate with our Literacy Tutors and the Diepsloot learners.  

Encouraging our new Literacy Tutors at Diepsloot, Alex Moss said, “Literacy Tutors, you are the future of help2read just as the children you are helping are the future of South Africa; literacy is the most pivotal way for you to change your communities.”

Gifting a child with a book to take home made the commemoration of International Book Giving Day very special. Not only were the learners inspired to read their brand new book, they get to take them home and practice reading outside of the school context.

A big thank you to all of the Volunteer Reading Helpers, Literacy Tutors and partner schools that celebrated with us, as well as Books For Africa for their generous donation of books.