WHO WE ARE
The initiative to start the Young Readers Foundation came in 2018
from an author, in a small language area, who saw that it was very
difficult for certain publishers to keep their heads above water in an
increasingly shrinking market. He also noticed that young people had
little interest in reading books. He wanted to do something about that
and that’s why he decided to set up an organization that would tackle
this problem.
However, setting up an organization requires an
official structure. He told his experience to the CEO of MaryDes
Designs Ltd. A design company that had designed his book cover and
with which he had become a good friend. MaryDes proposed to him, while
awaiting the assignment of this project to the King Baudouin
Foundation, to take on the management for the time being and to
arrange the accounting and official obligations.
OUR CAUSE
Everything young people do will have an effect on our society. And
that is why they bear a big responsibility. They will have to pursue
and maintain peace, they will have to trade in an equitable manner,
must make technological progress and take care of the elderly and the
sick. Isn’t it logical then that we ensure that they are given every
opportunity to develop themselves and that they are ready to carry out
these tasks properly? This is also in our advantage.
A very
effective way to achieve this is to let them read more books. There
are more than 20 good reasons why reading is important.
Although
we know the positive effects of reading, not all young people have the
opportunity to read, or are interested in it. You may think of places
in Africa or war zones in the Middle East. Yes, of course there too,
but you should not look that far. On the one hand, you have the small
language areas where book publishing is unprofitable, as a result of
which young people have a hard time finding books to read and
therefore, can’t develop themselves enough to meet the challenges of
the future. But kids in larger language areas are not safe either.
There is the sometimes-addictive activity on social media that
prevents young people to take time to read a good book and benefit
from all positive effects of reading.
The “Young Readers
Foundation” wants to change this. This organization has the ambitious
plan to get as many young people in the world as possible to read, and
thereby, ensure that they can improve the future of their community in
a dignified way. We want to work together with authors, publishers and
schools to turn the tide.
WHAT THE MONEY IS FOR
- For supporting authors. We seek and support authors who write books for young people in small language areas. Together with them, we investigate how best to shape their project and who are the most important people who can help bring their project to a successful conclusion.
- For supporting publishers. We seek and support publishers in small language areas. Together we investigate how we can support projects for young people and limit publisher’s financial risk.
- For campaigns on social media. To give a message to young people you have to look them up in places where they are present. One of them is social media. That is why we try to motivate young people through campaigns on social media.
- For collaborating with schools and teachers. Many teachers experience the decreasing interest of their students in reading. We want to offer them ideas to reverse this trend. We also want to work with them and support them financially to give shape to their ideas to get young people back to reading. Supporting their projects to let students read and write. (Case study available at our website)
WE DO NEED YOUR HELP
Help funding our projects
We can all have wonderful ideas to get young people to read
again, but without financial means it will only be dreams. Your
financial contribution, no matter how small, will contribute to the
realization of the numerous projects that we carry out. Your donation
is therefore essential and we thank you in advance.
Be a volunteer
In order to be successful, we must first find out where small
language areas are. We must investigate whether we can develop
projects there, establish contacts with authors and publishers. We
need to work with schools and teachers, listen to them and see how we
can support them. Any bright ideas, let us know. Work with us to
achieve our goals. Get involved and becomes our contact for local projects.
Spread the word
Tell others about our initiative. It’s another way to get
involved. The more people who know about us, the more efficient we can
work and the easier we will achieve our objectives.
THANK YOU
We, and the persons responsible for the projects we support, would be very grateful for your help. Please donate today and make our world a better place by letting young people read.
Thank you for your help.
Want to know more about the Young Readers Foundation? Visit our website.
