A $6.2 billion education spending gap has been caused by Coronavirus in sub-Saharan Africa and Nigeria is one of 12 countries at extreme risk of falling even further behind education targets. We know many children will never return to school after the pandemic, especially girls. We need to give these children a reason to return to school and the resources to bridge the growing learning gap. Our latest initiatve Book Box Library Club is needed now more than ever.

After working for many years in Nigeria providing libraries and books for schools, we decided in July 2019 that it was time to really understand how many children have library access. We chose one poor, rural local authority and sent our team out to visit every single primary school. After visiting 102 schools and speaking with every headteacher, we found that 1,697 of 19,367 pupils have library access, which is only 8.8%. Even more surprising was the fact that 2 out of the 3 existing libraries had already been built by Christianna Foundation. It was clear that something more needed to be done. Helping some schools was not enough, every child needed equal access to the opportunity to read. It was apparent that civil society organisations like ours had to bridge the gap in funding and access to education if these children were to get the education they deserve

We got to work making plans. To develop a project that would reach every child we consulted teachers, spoke with families and drew on our years of experience working within 20 schools in Nigeria. Children needed more books, more time with books and more help reading than teachers could give. Over the next few months we developed Book Box Library Club, a mobile library that lends books to children for use at school and at home. The library club will operate from primary schools, work with teachers and draw on the community to develop Community/Peer Reading Buddies. We would provide books, activities, events and competitions. Book Box Library Club would be bright, fun and inspire a love of reading.

In January 2020 we piloted the Book Box Library Club in five schools, lending books to nearly 800 pupils in Ona-Ara, Oyo State. The response was fantastic. The teachers were keen, the children were excited and the parents were so happy to see their children being supported with resources they desperately needed. It was clear that every child should get this opportunity.

Christianna Foundation are now planning to take Book Box Library Club to all of the 102 primary schools that we surveyed. We want every one of those 20,000 children to have the chance to access great books and get the reading support they need for a literate future.

Starting in September 2020 - or when school re-open after the pandemic -we plan to officially begin roll out and we need your help to do it. At an average of just £1 per book, it will take just £14 for each child to have library access for the whole of their primary school years.

Donate today and we can give the precious gift of literacy to the bright young minds that are Nigeria's future.

TO DONATE IN NIGERIAN NAIRA PLEASE VISIT WWW.CHRISTIANNAFOUNDATION.ORG