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The scheme is part of the wider READ International (Recycling Education Allowing Development) organisation, a new student led charity based at English universities.The scheme aims to gather secondary school educational resources locally to redistribute them in target regions across Tanzania.
Although launching nationally in the Houses of Parliament on October 31st, the charity has already been awarded the accolade of Charity Times Best New UK Charity 2007 in September, and is in the process of launching its York Book Project. York Project officers will be looking for new volunteers to sign up at the YUSU Fair from 10am today.
Whilst campaigning for the charity, university volunteers also give presentations and workshops to their local secondary schools about student volunteering, young social enterprise, global citizenship, recycling and sustainability.
This really is such a worthwhile cause and I hope we can get as many people involved as possible
Kim Mirren, York Book Project Finance Officer, told The Yorker: "Tanzania is an extremely underprivileged country with an excessive demand for educational resources. By merely collecting and redistributing the surplus textbooks and school equipment from secondary schools in the UK we can make an incredible difference to so many children.
"This really is such a worthwhile cause and I hope we can get as many people involved as possible to ensure that education in Tanzania continues to improve."
The concept for the scheme first began back in 2003 at the University of Nottingham when five students attempted to collect, collate, and ship disused secondary school textbooks from the local area to be redistributed in Tanzania, Africa.
Tanzania's secondary school syllabus is based almost exactly on the UK syllabus, yet in this country books that are just 12 months old are thrown away to landfill. The first project leaders felt this was a ridiculous situation, and so began the concept of attempting to tackle the problem on a national scale.
After successfully co-ordinating the Nottingham Book Project to collect over 40,000 textbooks, a team of the volunteers headed out to Africa to distribute over 25,000 of the most relevant, best quality books to 20 Tanzanian schools. The project continued in 2005/6 to do the same, now benefiting over 16,000 Tanzanian school children on a daily basis.
Since then, READ International has continued its expansion, replicating the Nottingham University model at four other universities across the country; Liverpool John Moores, Bedfordshire, Warwick and Southampton.
In June, an expanded group of 100 READ International student volunteers packed four containers in four separate locations throughout the UK with the following educational resources destined for 95 schools in Tanzania:
Alongside its stall at the YUSU Fair, the York Book Project will be running various events over the coming year to raise vital funds which go towards the costs of sending the resources to Africa.
The project’s introductory meeting will be on Wednesday 17 October, at 6pm in Langwith L/036, where the leaders hope many students will get involved.
The team will also be holding a stall at the Student Action Volunteering Fair to be held in Goodricke Old Dining Hall on Tuesday 6 November 2007 from 10.30am until 4pm.
For more information, visit the READ International website, or sign up at the YUSU Fair on Saturday 13th October.
http://www.readinternational.org.uk
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