December 2011: Donation images

Here are some pics from the first OSC Books for Schools donation. Made to South La Estate Primary School, in Accra, Ghana. Additionally, OSC funded a training workshop for these teachers on how to setup a school library and get the most out of the books.

August 2011: The books are on their way

Thank you to all of the students and schools who have supported OSC over the last year. We are delighted to have beaten our target and 7754 books have been boxed up and are being shipped to Ghana.

Tula Publishing worked with Ferdinand Reimmer, a local Ghanaian publishing agent, to identify 26 schools that would really benefit from OSC’s donation.

To ensure the schools are able to get the most out of the books, OSC is sponsoring workshops for teachers of the 26 schools on how to use the books effectively in class. Additionally, the very good ‘Setting Up and Running a School Library’ from Pearson Education was included in the donation.

We will be updating this page with feedback from the schools and lots of pictures.

February 2011: Project Introduction

OSC is a Social Enterprise - a company whose profits go to charity (read more). We want to engage students in a new project that OSC is funding - providing desperately needed reading books for school children in Africa.

OSC is working with Tula Publishing to provide books to schools in Malawi and Ghana - schools which typically have few or no reading or reference books. Studies by international donor agencies have demonstrated that providing appropriate books has made a tremendous difference to child literacy and development.

Tula has sourced ideal books for these schools. OSC is providing funding for the project and will be working with Tula to track the results. The project is also being generously supported by the publishers, printers and distributers.

How many books will we send?

When OSC gets 4 or more students from the same IB school signed up for our 2011 Spring Courses we will be able to provide one whole set reading books (38 or 48 books) for a school covering a range of abilities.

Where we get 10 or more students from the same school we can provide two sets of reading books plus a selection of reference books specially chosen for these schools.

Our target is to send over 7000 reading and 250 reference books. This could help hundreds of children to improve their reading skills.

Which books are going?

Milly, Molly - this series of books is written for children between the ages of four and eight. The stories relate the adventures of two little girls from different ethnic backgrounds along with their multi-cultural friends. The books promote the acceptance of diversity and the learning of life skills.

The stories deal with the kinds of questions and trials that children face every day-and offer understanding in such matters as honesty, respect for others, difference, tenacity, exercise, cooperation, respect for nature, bullying, stranger danger, forgiveness, trustworthiness, responsibility, loyalty, loss and grief-and many other areas that are challenging to young children.

View the collection of Milly, Molly books

Goal - Tula have taken the African rights for this series of 48 football themed supplementary readers, written especially for high interest age, low reading age students, or for those whose English is not their first language. The series offers a complete package of readers, workbooks and a teacher's guide.

View the collection of Goal books here

Miles Kelly - The range of titles is wide and varied. These include - encyclopedias, reference series, quiz books, dictionaries, atlases, handbooks, fact books, poetry, fiction, novelty books and much more.

OSC and Tula have identified a substantial selection of reference titles. These should prove to be a fantastic resource to the Ghana and Malawi school libraries.

View the range of Miles Kelly books here

This is just the beginning...

As the project develops we will post updates to this page. Everyone who contributes will receive information on the specific school they have supported.

There are several ideas and proposals we are considering on how we can develop this and similar projects. We are very excited and we hope you are too!