Meet READ International
As you may know, we're holding a Literary Twestival on Friday 14th August as part of our book festival. We are all very excited about the games and challenges that we'll be playing through twitter, coining collective nouns, passing the plot and writing some very, very short fiction. However, because we don't do enough for charity (ha!), we'll also be holding a charity raffle in aid of READ International, a brilliantly dynamic young charity.
READ – a good story
READ International, winner of 'Best New UK Charity' in the 2007 Charity Times Awards, began life in 2003 as a Book Project, based at Nottingham University, founded by a group of socially entrepreneurial students following a ‘gap year’ teaching in Tanzania. Now there are over 500 student volunteers involved, operating from a network of over 20 university sites across the UK.
They collect school textbooks and children’s literature from primary and secondary schools throughout the UK, sort the books and send the most relevant, up-to-date, and high quality books to schools in Tanzania and Uganda. Any books collected which are not relevant or appropriate to send are sold online through their partnership with Better World Books or recycled to generate funding.
Tanzania and Uganda follow a secondary school syllabus almost identical to the UK, but teachers often lack the resources needed to teach. In the UK newer editions of books inevitably replace the old (very often only a couple of years old though), which makes for good quality, but technically ‘out of date’ textbooks filling up school store rooms or ending up in landfill. READ sends them to where they are really needed, improving access to education to thousands of children in East Africa.
READ has grown rapidly over the past 3 years since they launched on the national stage in House of Commons in 2007. Since their first shipment of books as an unregistered organisation in 2005, they have shipped a total of 564,000 books to Tanzania and are supporting the renovation of dozens of school libraries so that access to these books is also improved. They have also sent several tonnes of sports kits, science equipment, and school stationery. In Tanzania and Uganda they work closely with the Ministry of Education to ensure that their books go to where they are most needed. Their work in UK schools has also developed. They now deliver a workshop programme called ‘Think Global’, to secondary schools throughout the UK, in partnership with Oxfam GB to raise awareness of global citizenship to UK school children.
Since registering as a charity READ have had their work recognised in a number of ways. Founder and director Robert Wilson has; been winner of the prestigious Unltd level 1 and 2 awards, been a finalist in the Enterprising Young Brit Awards 2006, won the Social Enterprise Day Award 2006, been a finalist in the Edge Upstarts Young Social Entrepreneur of the Year Awards 2008, and READ International was winner of 'Best New Charity' in the Charity Times Awards 2007.
It never costs READ more than 50 pence to move one book from a UK classroom into the hands of a Tanzanian school child or teacher. They have an innovative model with income streams from book sales and student fundraising drives but are not quite entirely self-sufficient, so still need your help.
Please find out how you can support them by visiting: www.readinternational.org.uk
