On Friday, 14 June 2019 the Grenada Alumni Initiative group will host, in partnership with the Ministry of Education, READ ACROSS DAY for public primary school students across Grenada, Carriacou & Petite Martinique.
This will be the 4th year this organisation, chaired by Pat Adams and Frances Purcell, will deliver the largest single-day celebration of reading across the nation. For 2019 the theme will bring to focus the issues of bullying many children face each day and is titled “Choose KIND” simply to allow children to know that they can make a difference. The small but impactful group has worked tirelessly to promote the benefits of reading, book ownership, inspire positive attitudes toward literacy and simply share the joy of reading.
The Read Across Day event has grown since it was first introduced in 2015 by the Grenada Alumni Initiative group (whose members are past students from various secondary schools) for 1,120 under-served children in the community. Beginning in 2017 the programme was expanded to all students across the primary schools and allowed for each of them to receive books to take home for personal ownership. The total number of children’s leisure books distributed, as of 2019 by this group, to students and primary school libraries will now exceed 75,000.
Many individuals and groups purchased new books from the Grenada Alumni Book Wish List on Amazon’s website and also made donations of gently used ones. The majority of books were sourced from Atlanta-based “Books for Africa” organisation that was generous in sharing their inventory to further the outreach of philanthropy work to benefit Africa’s Diaspora. Once again Adams says, on behalf of the group, “thanks to everyone who helped make 2019 Read Across Day possible” including St George’s University (SGU) for handling the large shipment from Atlanta and Spector & Co., a Canadian company that provided educational items for students.
Parents and local residents are invited to participate as volunteer readers and are encouraged to reach out in advance to Principals of schools they are interested in visiting. The programme is planned for 10 am and runs approximately 2 hours, including distribution of the books.
Reading provides many opportunities for children to explore the world without taking a single step and we know that a “child who reads will be an adult who thinks” – we are honoured to have a platform to let them know that above all to “Be A Wonder and Choose KIND!”
Grenada Alumni Initiative Group
