A thousand books will be donated to schools in Samoa as part of a reading programme supported by U.S. not-for-profit organisation Read Aloud America (Hawaii) and local non-government organisation Brown Girl Woke.

The aim of the programme is to encourage teachers, parents and the community is to support the education of Samoa's children through reading and writing.

BGW founder Maluseu Doris Tulifau, in response to questions sent by the Samoa Observer, said she used to work for Read Aloud America (Hawaii) during her university years where she learnt how the programme encouraged parents to read to their children and supported child reading. 

“I knew the programme worked and wanted to bring it to Samoa,” Maluseu told the Samoa Observer. “The programme in America has closed after 26 years because of [COVID-19] and schools being closed for more than a year.”

According to Maluseu, Read Aloud America Director, Jed Gaines is happy to donate the books, programmes and supplies to launch the initiative in Samoa.

She said the programme has five goals: encourage parents and teachers to read to children on a regular basis; provide book reports to help parents and teachers choose books and read to children; demonstrate the pleasure of reading and its relevance to daily life; nurture a love of reading in parents and awaken a love of reading in children; and encourage families to limit television, computer and screen time and read.

“We first make a donation of books, talk to principals, teachers and reps of parent teacher association and explain about our programme, promoting book reports, reading at school and home and coming once a month for two hours to give prizes to kids that have read the most books, reading has improved and support teachers with school supplies,” Maluseu said.

Schools that were chosen to participate in the programme have emailed the local non-government organisation, said the B.G.W. founder. 

“Each school has emailed help and wanted help with their library or never had library,” Maluseu said. “The quality of our books are definitely going to make kids want to read.”