*HOW DID YOU KNOW ABOUT WLR?
I founded Educate2030.org to promote support young people’s academic excellence and reduce the alarming rate of illiteracy in our communities in Nigeria. And one of our programs to do this, is to freely distribute literary books to underprivileged children in these remote communities, so as to increase their enthusiasm to reading and learning. We discovered that some of these children don’t read these books after they receive it from us. So, we sought for ways to tackle this problem, couple with the increasing rate of illiteracy caused by lack of reading culture and non-availability of libraries in our communities & neighborhoods, hence the WLR Project. On my search to tackle this problem through partnerships, I bumped into We Love Reading. I fell in love with WLR innovative approach to inculcate reading culture into the lives of young people, so I screamed Let’s do this!!
*HOW DO YOU THINK WLR WILL HAVE AN IMPACT ON PEOPLE IN NIGERIA?
We agreed to adopt WLR program into our existing programs in order to fix the loophole found in the lives of young people in Nigeria, which is the lack of reading culture. We settled for the WLR innovative approach, after seeing it’s impact on the lives of kids in Jordan. We believe that the same impacts can be replicated in the Sub-Saharan Africa, starting with Nigeria. Modern Nigeria is becoming bereft of well-read people, young people and adults don’t seem to read any more, except playing games and watching Nickelodeon cartoons on TV.
To combat illiteracy in Nigeria, Educate2030 believes that an investment into the younger generation will reduce illiteracy and promote quality education through advocacy for the early development of children. Hence, the need to promote the culture of reading among these young people in Nigeria through We Love Reading (WLR) approach. Reading, whether for academic purposes or for pleasure, is the key to life-long learning and knowledge acquisition.
I believe that a country cannot be fully developed without a collective or large-scale investment in her educational sector, since the breakthrough of a country is directly proportional to her educational level of her citizens. It’s a fact that the acquisition of effective reading skills has a positive effect on the child’s knowledge on all school subjects, then reading is a necessity for all-round development. WLR will enhance the educational growth and development of the nation, as well as reduce the rate of illiteracy. Through this program, we initiate readership campaigns and read aloud sessions, aimed at promoting the reading culture among young people.
*WHAT IS THE PROBLEM THAT YOU THINK WLR WILL HELP SOLVE IN YOUR COMMUNITY?
The increasing rate of illiteracy caused by unavailability of neighborhood libraries and poverty has posed a big problem and a setback in the educational advancement of my community. The libraries are places of information and intellectual laboratory. It’s traditional that when people think ‘library’, they think ‘books’. Libraries are much more than books. They promote literacy and helps children/adults develop skills they need to survive in our global society of information, hence the need for WLR programs. Driven by the importance of sharing knowledge, opening libraries and read aloud sessions in these remote communities will serve the community and increase the zeal for knowledge & fun among young people.
Consecutively, the lack of reading culture among young people has contributed in the increase in the rate of illiteracy in our remote communities. Some adults believe that reading is only for children or the extremely intelligent. Little did they know that anyone who wants to read can read, hence they develop little interest for reading and it extends to their children & youths. With WLR programs, there are no excuses for not reading a book. Reading grants young people the power to do extraordinary things, making them global thinkers and change-makers in their communities.
With the help of We Love Reading (WLR), the strategies for developing reading culture are to introduce children to reading very early in their lives, to read for contests and to establish libraries in their classrooms and training of the teachers who will teach the children how to read.