What do you buy the person who has everything? Well, charitable gifts are all the rage and if you love a reader who has a birthday coming up they may appreciate a reading gift in their honour, rather than a book. We bookworms don’t always like being bought books, we do like vouchers and book tokens but if you’re looking for something a bit different then these gifts help spread the reading love to places it doesn’t always get!
Many of us take literacy for granted, but not everyone has the same access to books and educational material, with one of these gifts you can give the gift of literacy where it’s needed!
Books for U.S Children in Need
It’s said that while children from middle-class U.S. families have engaged in an average of 1,000 to 1,700 hours of one-on-one reading time, children from low-income families have been exposed to an average of only 25 hours.
Science Supplies for Afghan Girls
Now this is the kind of warfare I can get right behind. What better way to sock it to the oppressors than to send science books and supplies to young girls in Afghanistan?
Learning for Native Americans
Programmes that educate Native American students are in danger, but this scheme funds places of learning, so desperately needed by the indigenous people, and hoping to better the drop out rate, currently as high as 51%.
Happy Tales and Wagging Tails
The DIBELS project provides a Sit Stay Read dog for a school, increasing literacy through a love of animals to children from low-income families in the City of Chicago. For children who may well not have either pet, or books at home, this is a great way to promote literacy.
Build a School in Haiti
Only 20% of Haitian girls make it into secondary education, but your gift will go towards building a brand new school in the country, giving children a better chance at education and literacy.
If you’re sick of giving Amazon vouchers, but the celebrity biographies you buy your bookish friends aren’t appreciated, these gifts really do give a lot more. You don’t have to be buying for others either, I’ve just bought the Science Supplies for Afghan Girls because I think it’s a brilliant idea!
Jurgis Bielinis and the Day of the Book Smugglers
Graham Norton to Launch Book Club Podcast with Audible
