Pearple Read, founded by Miss Pearl Afua Acheampong and supported by a team of volunteers, began in August 2018 when Ms. Acheampong, realizing she could connect with people all over the world through her blog, decided to share the gift of reading and writing with others by starting with children.
The major objective for Pearple Read is the belief that every child has the right to not just education but also to be a reader who would gain extra knowledge from books even outside of the classroom. This sole purpose of the group is geared towards the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal Four (SDG 4); Ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education and promoting lifelong learning.
The group also intends to raise the next generation of readers and writers and also promote reading culture among young adults.
The Pearple Read team, generally operates by scouting for locations or schools with less books or no libraries to assist them, and also calling on individuals and organisations to donate books, stationery items and essential educational materials for the schools.
Since its inception, the group has distributed about 300 books and some stationery items to the Jubilee School at Ashaiman, and also shared about 700 books and some stationery items between the Child Development Centre, Mampong and Mampong Methodist School respectively.
Speaking to myghanadaily.com on the challenges faced in this kind of work and especially in this coronavirus season, Ms. Acheampong expressed that technology has been a big part in bridging the gap and explained how they are using it as a tool to reach their target audience which is children.
“Covid- 19 put a number of activities on a halt, especially our reading clubs and clinics, since it involves a lot of in- person meetings and it not being advisable for children of a certain age to wear masks for longer periods, has reduced drastically. We are however using social media a lot to share stories with the children’s head teachers so they can share it with them on the various platforms they have.”
Speaking on the future of Pearple Read and what the big picture is for the group, Ms. Acheampong expressed the desire of establishing reading clinics and clubs in communities that have less educational resources.
“We are looking forward to establishing reading clinics and clubs to impact more people in communities with less resources to education.”
If you desire to assist the Pearple Read group reach their objective of empowering children to read and write, with any kind of donation, you can kindly find them on all the social media platforms such as, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter with the name @pearpleread.
