Book Relief – Welcome, and thank you for paying us a visit!
BookRelief UK was established as a non-profit voluntary organisation with charitable purposes – in Bideford, North Devon, England in October 2006. In March 2010 we were granted formal charitable status.
Our mission is the promotion of higher literacy standards – in both the UK and in developing countries – through the active support of literacy advancement projects – and by working with or partnering with – other specialist organisations in this field, both here and overseas, as appropriate.
Why Literacy?
According to the OECD, at least 15 percent of adults in Britain have literacy skills at only the most rudimentary level – making it difficult for them to cope with the rising skills demands of the information age, while UNESCO reports that ‘nearly a quarter of 16-year olds in the richest countries are fundamentally illiterate – i.e – they cannot understand brochures, timetables, road maps and simple instructions for household products.’
And it gets worse when you look at the UK’s prison population. The Shannon Trust reports that 38% of all adult prisoners have no useful literacy skills and a further 29% have very poor reading skills.
Our first undertaking, at a local level in North Devon, was the promotion and funding of two ‘Reading is Fundamental’ (RIF) projects, an initiative of the National Literacy Trust designed to promote a love of reading among disadvantaged children and young people – and to give them a chance to choose free books to keep for themselves. You can find out more about RIF from their website at www.rif.org.uk
BookRelief UK are also mindful of the huge and ongoing need for books in developing countries and we make suitable used books – particularly those with an educational bias – available for donation to appropriate groups working in English speaking parts of Africa and elsewhere.
In this regard you may also find the link below to the article ‘A Hunger for Books’ of interest.
http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,2223780,00.html