Graphic, Rotary, Gedaid Foundation launch reading project
The Graphic Communications Group Limited (GCGL), the Rotary Club, Labone, in collaboration with the Gedaid Foundation, have launched a reading projectin Accra to help improve the reading skills of the children in deprived schools.
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The project aims at distributing 1,000 free copies of the Junior Graphic a week to 24 selected deprived schools in the area.
Project launch
At the launch project last Thursday, the Director for Marketing and Sales of the GCGL, Mr Franklin Sowah said, "as part of our Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), we believe strongly that an educated community or nation is one that has hope and better future; therefore, if the knowledge is in books, we need to help children acquire it through reading."
Mr Sowah said when the students read regularly, their knowledge levels would improve which would add value to society, noting that knowledge is power and there was a need to acquire it.
He said the GCGL was currently running this project in 134 deprived schools across the country but the partnership with the Rotary Club targeted at schools in the Club’s catchment area would increase the number to 158 schools.
Mr Sowah urged parents to buy the Junior Graphic for their children to read because such investment assured a better future for the children.
The launch brought together members of the Rotary Club, some staff of the GCGL, the Gedaid Foundation and stakeholders.
They raised funds from members to support the project.
The President of the Rotary Club, Accra Labone, Mr John Agyekum explained that they would buy 500 copies of the Junior Graphic a week and the GCGL would give them additional 500 to distribute to public schools in their catchment area including Labone, Labadi, Nima and its environs.
He said the project would commence next academic year, but publication and all the requisite materials were ready to execute the project.
"The partnership would go a long way to helping us and society at large because we are empowering less privileged communities with knowledge,” Mr Agyekum noted.
Need to read
The President of the Gedaid Foundation, Mr Asafo Agyei, said he was passionate about learning because the foundation evolved after he ended his education at primary six because he could not read.
“We have over 100 story books approved by the Ghana Education service (GES) and hoping that at the end of every term, each student would read three set of books so by the time a child complete class six, the child might have read 18 different books,” he explained.
Background
The Rotary Club Labone Chapter has over the years contributed to community development through various projects that ranged from construction of library complex, adoption of patients’ wards at the Nsawam Government Hospital, blood donation to the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital Blood Bank, donation of wheel chairs to many hospitals.
