“Throughout my life I have remained deeply entrenched in the world of literacy, being both an avid reader and a fervent lover of books. As a child, growing up in the Ashanti region of Ghana, my parents sent me to the libraries, which were very limited and I had to queue to get access to the books there.  But it was this start that gave me my love of reading. 

I went on to become a primary school teacher and it was there that I realised there was a huge deficiency in teaching and learning due to a lack of books. I was frustrated as schools had library periods timetabled in the school day, but no books for the children to read. The children didn’t have much, they didn’t even have shoes and they definitely didn’t have money to buy books.  This concerned me so much that I would sometimes use my own resources to buy books for the children I was teaching. 

It’s my experiences of teaching young children in Ghanaian primary schools that led me to where I am today, Chief Executive of the reading organisation, Rainbow Trust Foundation.  I established Rainbow Trust Foundation (RTF) in 2013, whilst I was still teaching, hoping to find sources of books and sustainable ways to support primary school reading for underprivileged children.   

I decided to explore areas where I could get books for the children to read. I held book drives and canvassed local churches and private schools for donations of used books, and in 2015 I was introduced to Book Aid International.  

RTF has been going for ten years now and has so far provided services to more than 100 schools.  Since becoming a Book Aid International partner we have received eight shipments and distributed over 200,000 books to schools and libraries throughout the country, either directly or through the growing network of educational NGO partners in Ghana.  We are currently working with a range of communities from different districts across five regions in Ghana but we want to expand to reach all the regions.   

_{^{Young readers enjoying donated books at the Explorer School Library in Apapam}}

Projects like the Book Aid International funded Explorer School Library in Apapam, a village 90km north of Accra, have shown the immediate impact that the presence of a school library with books and trained staff can have.  When we launched this library we brought the whole community together – the Chiefs, the schools, the parents and the students.  The library is now used by seven schools locally and really serves as a community library. There is real interest from everyone, the parents are interested, the kids become enthusiastic and that’s a great story.   

I’ve realised that it’s not that children don’t love reading, it’s because the books are not there.  If the books are there, they will read.”