Satvir Kaur, Member of Parliament for Southampton Test, joined Business in the Community this week to deliver books to local children as part of BIC’sChristmas Books Campaign, an annual initiative that tackles low literacy rates by ensuring children in deprived areas receive books to enjoy and to help build reading confidence.
The Christmas Books Campaign, run in partnership with organisations including Bookmark Reading Charity and Miles Kelly Publishing and supported through The Big Give Christmas Challenge, aims to gift thousands of books to children across the UK, including in Southampton, where five schools have benefited.
Francis Davis, from Business in the Community Southampton said: “The schools in receipt of these books can use them however they see fit. Some are putting them in the school’s libraries so the children can take them and read them whenever they like, and others are giving them out as gifts to the kids in the run-up to Christmas. The important thing is that these children have access to new books to widen their horizons and inspire a love of reading.”
Satvir Kaur MP was delighted to take part in the deliveries and to return to her former school, Mount Pleasant Junior School, to help distribute books to pupils.
“This is a fantastic initiative from Business in the Community, and when they got in touch asking if I could send the call out to schools in Southampton Test to see if they wanted the free books, I jumped at it,” said Satvir.
“We had such a great response, and three schools across my constituency have now benefited. Getting to go back to my old school is always so special, and I absolutely loved chatting to the pupils and getting to hear what they’ve been up to, we even chatted about the Downing Street cat, Larry.
“Reading is such an essential life skill, and if you can get kids reading and loving books from a young age, it will benefit them throughout their lives. It also goes hand in hand with Labour’s recent commitment to put a proper library in every English primary school by the end of the current Parliament.”
Also in attendance to support the campaign was BBC South’s Political Editor, Peter Henley, who has backed the initiative.
The campaign aims to put the joy of reading into the hands of thousands of children each year, and schools across the city have welcomed their new books.