Give a Book is a charity dedicated to promoting books and the pleasure of reading in the hardest places. Our main work is in prisons, schools and with disadvantaged children. We see again and again how reading changes people’s lives.
Weavers funding was used to support a 3 year reading project in HMP YOI Isis. In this challenging prison of 600 young men (18-25, 75% BAME, high gang affiliation), only 20% of whom visited the library, they have now established a regular prison-wide reading challenge, on-going reading groups on both house blocks, book support for Well Being Days and Family Days, audio books, micro fiction competition, and regular reading celebrations. They actively brought reading to the residential blocks, rather than relying on visits to the library. To gauge from the number of books that ’disappear’ from the shelves, reading has now reached many.
