Books ‘N Brunch promotes reading in Jamaica
Published:Saturday | May 11, 2024 | 12:08 AMShanel Lemmie/Staff Reporter
As Jamaica celebrates Education Week with a special emphasis on Read Across Jamaica Day, Amplify Studios in partnership with GrassROOTS Community Foundation and the Book Industry Association of Jamaica is taking a keen look at Jamaica’s literacy rate and saying enough is enough.
This year, the trio of foundations, with the help of sponsors like Broken Plate Restaurant and Jet Blue Airlines is set to donate 1,250 books to three libraries across the parishes of St James, St Ann and St Catherine.
Catching up with Amplify Studios head honcho Joel Nomdarkham at last Sunday’s Books ‘N Brunch, he told GoodHeart that when he and his partners took stock of the literacy rate in Jamaica, they were shocked.
“When you look at the fact that literacy in Jamaica is alarming,” he began. “It’s alarming in the sense that it’s really bad. The actions and the steps that should be taken are a very traditional approach. There is still punishment tied to reading. Parents telling them children ‘go and take up a book’ when it should be playtime or whatever the case is and we have not moved away from that kind of thinking.”
He continued, “I started this company because of my love and passion for social impact and I always believed that there is so much more that brands can do and need to tap into. The brunch is a testament to that. The brands that get it, get it. Yeah you eat and have a nice time and belch, but at the same time, the funds that you’ve contributed is going into purchasing books or going into a development session for a young person. A key part of how we try to do it is to get the resources together without having to rely on the government. We just care about the kids and we’re trying to find ways to complement whatever initiatives are already there.”
Hosted as a part of their Reading N’ Reasoning initiative, international benefactor Dr Janice Johnson-Dias has been shuttling books to the country through Jet Blue. Originally from Retreat, St Mary Johnson-Dias has contributed approximately 10,000 books to Jamaica over the years.
“Bringing books to Jamaica and investing in Jamaican youth is just really important. When I was a kid back in the 1900s,” she joked, “people used to read all the time. When Jamaica mash up and doe have nuh money, America come, England come, everybody come ... we always had literacy. And literacy is a pathway to freedom because it invites imagination so it’s my pleasure to bring the books down,” she began.
“We’re gonna invest in St James, we’re gonna invest in St Ann and we’re gonna invest in St Catherine really deeply. So for the next three years we’re gonna give books to the public libraries, give books to the schools and give books to the homes and then our hope is that over those three years we can see a reduction in youth crime. We really know that when the youths cyah read, dem get mad, and when dem get mad them do all kinds of things and that really is gonna mash up our country.”