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If it has been a challenge for you to get your child to put down the remote control and pick up a book maybe an activity this week will not only inspire the kids but actually get them interested in reading. Starting today right through Friday the Belize Reading Council is hosting a book drive for a programme to be launched in September. The programme called “DEAR” is an abbreviation for “Drop Everything And Read” and will have the participation of pilot schools from across the country. The drive is coordinated by the Belize Reading Council and the National Library Service. Today BRC’s President, Consuelo Godfrey stopped by our studios to tell us why we should all get involved.

Consuelo Godfrey, President – BRC
“Well actually it is what we call practice makes perfect and so the DEAR program is really an initiative designed by the Belize Reading Council to really have students on a daily basis to get into that habit of reading. And if they have books that they like, if they have a book that they are interested in and they get a chance or an opportunity everyday to read then we believe that is going to help them to develop that love if everyday they are given that opportunity to sit and read a book for ten minutes every morning in class, just silent reading and everyone does it. So if they see the teacher doing it, the principal, the secretary – I think it will work.”

Jacqueline Godwin,
How many schools are taking part?

Consuelo Godfrey,
“Well the first phase of this program is to collect the books and once we look at the number of books we’ve been collecting, then we’re going to decide how many schools in each district we want to target. So it depends on how many books we get and so we’re really urging the community to bring in the books.”

Jacqueline Godwin,
How many books you want to collect?

Consuelo Godfrey,
“As many as possible, I don’t know if I can put a number on it. If we get a thousand I think right now at this point we just want the books. We want the books to be brought in and that’s why we collaborated with the Library Service because they are the ones that are nationwide and so people, they won’t be able to go to a house or an office, go to the library, drop off the books, and we are saying used books, we are saying new books – it doesn’t matter.”

According to Godfrey, at this point they are more interested in collecting primary level books because those are the schools that will be targeted in the first phase of the programme. If you are interested in donating either a new or used book the process is rather simple, just drop off books at any public library in your community. For more information you can contact the council at 623–4462 or email them at brcbelize@gmail.com.