Smurfit Kappa Foundation Bookshare Project Celebration

Inspirational Bookshare Project in Nechells
From September 2013 to July 2014 children in year 1 classes from five schools across Nechells have been involved in The Bookshare Project. Funded by Smurfit Kappa Foundation and managed by Nechells POD, the Bookshare Project has provided one book per month for eleven months to one hundred and fifty children. The children have read and enjoyed the books with their parents and have built a library of these books at home. To mark the end of the Bookshare Project a celebration was held at Heartlands Academy on Wednesday 16th July 2014 and was attended by all the year 1 children and staff from participating schools, parents and invited guests including Marie Barrett from Smurfit Kappa Foundation Dublin, Paul Freeman from Smurfit Kappa Nechells and Steve Smallman, a famous children’s author and illustrator, who entertained the children by telling his stories and drawing cartoons from ideas suggested by the children. Parents, children and staff had the opportunity to tell everyone about how much they had enjoyed the Bookshare Project and how it had encouraged reading both in school and at home. As a result of the positive impact of the Bookshare Project this year, Smurfit Kappa Foundation are continuing to fund the Bookshare Project next year in St Joseph’s, St Vincent’s, St Clement’s, Cromwell and Nechells primary schools and it is being expanded to included Year 7 students from Heartlands Academy. Everyone had an ‘amazing’ day and it was a fantastic end to a brilliant project run by Nechells POD.