A CHARITY is celebrating its tenth anniversary this year by pledging to give away 10,000 books and 10,000 hours of support to children.
Every Child Our Future has been working with local children to foster a love of reading, improve numeracy levels and develop speech and language skills for a decade.
Working in partnership with schools, the government and Jersey Library, the charity seeks to support and increase educational opportunities for children by providing a variety of programmes.
This year, the organisation is marking its ten-year milestone with a series of events, starting with their ‘Big Book Giveaway’ initiative which will distribute 10,000 children’s books across the Island.
The books will be placed in schools, Jersey Library and given away in partnership with other charities and at events such as Jersey Children’s Day and REAL in the Park at the Jersey Festival of Words.
The first 100 books will appear in ten classrooms across Jersey, and will feature titles from the past decade. Children will then be invited to vote on their favourite book of the decade before the spring half-term.
ECOF will also be supporting the rollout of Little Libraries, by making an initial donation to each library and topping them up regularly. Orchestrated by former Education Minister Rod Bryans, Little Library boxes will be placed in communities, allowing people to take or share books.
The charity has also introduced its ’10 for 10′ initiative which encourages Islanders to donate £10 a month for ten months. Donations can be made through jerseygiving.je.
ECOF chief executive Cris Lakeman said: “Reaching our tenth anniversary is a proud moment for everyone involved with the charity.
“Through The Big Book Giveaway, we are hoping to inspire a generation of lifelong readers.”
Starting in 2016 with volunteers delivering reading session in schools, ECOF has since expanded to work in 23 schools with 409 volunteers having supported 1,250 children.
Their programmes primarily target helping children in non-fee paying schools across the Island to develop their reading, speech and language skills. They now offer ten programmes which range from Toddler Tales, focussed on helping some of the youngest Islanders get into reading, to the installation of permanent story trails in Howard Davis and Millbrook Parks.
In setting up the charity, co-founder Nick Kershaw – who was recently awarded an MBE in the New Year’s Honours List – was inspired by his daughter’s own experience with dyslexia and wanted to find a way to help children similarly struggling.
“I’d seen on a on a day to day basis the impact that had on a child, of finding reading so hard and how debilitating that was for them.” he said. “I wanted to see whether I could do something for children who were in a similar position.”
Mr Kershaw has since remained chairman of the organisation and a volunteer with their Ready to Read programme.
With their ten-year anniversary coinciding with the National Year of Reading campaign, which seeks to encourage more people across the UK to read for pleasure, Mr Kershaw added: “We’d love to see Islanders reading with their children […] making sure they devote half an hour a day to sitting down with their children and reading.
“I think the highlight for me is seeing the joy it brings to the children.
“When you go into a school and the child realises its their turn to read with an adult, and the hand goes straight up and they run out to see you – they clearly get a lot from that experience.”
The charity is consistently evolving its offering, adding a new programme to its outreach every year or two, something Mr Kershaw said the organisation is seeking to continue to to encourage more children to “reach for a book” amidst an increasingly digital world.
“It’s almost more important now than when we set up the charity that people focus on children’s reading, particularly reading for pleasure and making sure that children reach for a book rather than reach for a device” Mr Kershaw said.
“The distractions of the digital world really bring into sharp focus that there is absolutely a negative impact on the number of children reading for pleasure and on children’s reading levels.
“It’s not just about the technical side of reading. It’s also about the experience of imagining. It develops imagination. It takes you into a different world. It teaches you a different, broader vocabulary, helps you speak, helps you communicate with your peers.
“A child’s learning journey is fundamental to developing good language and social skills, and to communication more generally. If children don’t develop that bedrock life skill then I think we’re all going to struggle as a community”.
Highlights from ten years of supporting young Islanders
Some memorable projects from the last decade include:
- Launching Inspiring the Future – a digital programme set up in 2022 to allow schools to connect with volunteer and representatives from local industries. This allows schools to locate volunteers who are passionate about their profession and invite them to speak to students to help them understand how their education may apply to their future career.
- Programme managers Nicola Makereth and Emma Firth and chief executive Cris Lakeman partnering with the JEP last year to bring readers weekly book reviews designed to share experiences of reading with young people and recommend books to encourage more children to get into reading.
- Spearheading a project to place Speech and Language Therapists into nursery and early years settings to work alongside teachers to support the language development of their children. A donation from the Jersey Community Foundation allowed the project to begin in five early years settings in 2022, one of which saw an increase from under 50% to 90% of children achieving age-appropriate language levels after two academic years. The programme sought to offer training to educators and targeted help to children in the classroom, resulting in fewer children requiring specialist help in later years.
