The T.Y Buratai Literary Initiative in collaboration with Adam’s Pages bookstore is donating ‘Book Boxes’ to schools to improve literacy amongst Nigerian students.
The initiative kicked off its ‘Book Placement’ project on July 2, targeted at distributing the ‘Book Boxes’ at three different schools: The Army Day Secondary School, Mambila Barracks, Maitama, Abuja; Al-Hikmah International Academy, Mararaba, Nasarawa State; and the Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) Sharing Prosperity School, New Kuchingoro, Abuja, scheduled to take place within a week.
Aimed at promoting leisure reading as a means of enhancing students’ vocabulary and literary appreciation, each ‘Book Box’ comprises 30 books that cuts across the fiction and non-fiction literature including poetry, novels and motivational publications, donated by Adam’s Pages and benevolent individuals.
Conscious of the absence of a leisure reading culture amongst Nigerian students, Adam’s Pages representative, Salamatu Sule said it was important for the store that students read beyond their textbooks, to develop their vocabulary, travel the world and connect with peoples of variant experiences.
To engender the project’s continuity, the initiative will return within a year to swap the Book Boxes amongst the schools, followed by an additional year of reading.
Speaking with LEADERSHIP Books & Arts, Chairperson of the Initiative, Dr Lizzy-Ben Iheanacho said none of the boxes shared similar publication titles, and the choice of schools selected gives the project a semi-national outlook, in addition to providing for non-privileged students from conflict-ridden zones, who have low access to quality education.
“Because the books are sourced from different donors – 75% from Adam’s Page and individuals who set their own reading list, there is an unlikelihood of replicated titles. That means that when we recycle the contents, each school gets a new set of books.
“We are also appealing to writers, readers and lovers of the art who are stockpiling books that are yearning to be read, because the characters in these books want to come alive in another person’s life, to donate them, for us to reach more schools,” said Chairperson, T.Y Buratai Initiative, Dr Lizzy Ben-Iheanacho.
To ensure students’ comprehension of the responsibility and opportunity presented to them, Dr Ben-Iheanacho instructed the students on how not to man-handle books rather to ‘respect books’, as well as how to conduct a critical analysis of works read to better develop their minds.
Narrating to the students how he took up reading as a means of escaping his childhood environment in Ajegunle, Lagos, Author, Oko Owo Icho, urged them to become enlightened global citizens via reading.
“You are not competing with your fellow students in Nigeria, rather your companions across the world. The world listens to no excuses, and the best way to catch up with your colleagues outside the country is to be a voracious reader.”
Commending the initiative for kickstarting the project with the school, Principal, Army Day Secondary School, Hajiya Sadat Yahaya pledged that the students will take advantage of the upcoming holiday to make good use of Book Box.
And to the students, she charged, “you have been given a big responsibility and the work starts now”.
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