We are thrilled to announce that Penguin Random House UK has chosen us as its Charity of the Year. We will be embarking on a two-year partnership to improve social mobility in the UK by closing the literacy gap between the nation’s most and least disadvantaged children.
The partnership aims to help thousands of children, young people and families in the UK’s poorest communities develop the literacy skills they need to succeed at school, get a job, escape poverty and be successful in life.
We have a longstanding relationship with Penguin Random House. The publisher is a signatory of the Vision for Literacy Business Pledge and a founding partner of the Read North East campaign.
For the Charity of the Year partnership, Penguin Random House will:
- donate 150,000 books to National Literacy Trust Hubs, which support the
literacy of children and families in some of the poorest communities in the UK
- fund 12 National Literacy Trust programmes (including Early Words Together, the Young Readers Programme
and Words for Work)
in disadvantaged primary and secondary schools local to its offices in London
and warehouses in Frating and Grantham
- run an extensive volunteering programme and fundraising activity with employees
Our Director, Jonathan Douglas, said: “We are thrilled that Penguin Random House has chosen the National Literacy Trust as its Charity of the Year. We already have a strong and established relationship driven by a shared commitment to get more children reading. We are looking forward to building on this as we embark on our two-year partnership.
“Poor literacy creates significant barriers in life for millions of disadvantaged people in the UK. Working together with Penguin Random House we can transform the lives of thousands of children and young adults from the most deprived communities, giving them the literacy skills they need to succeed and helping to improve social mobility in the UK.”
Tom Weldon, CEO of Penguin Random House UK, said: “After a long relationship with the National Literacy Trust, we are very pleased to establish a formal partnership and expand our efforts to tackle the current literacy crisis. The stark figures on the implications of low literacy on social mobility underline just how important an issue this is for the future of the UK. It also plays a major role in what we call the creativity gap, which exists because of social and economic inequality across the country, and which we as a publisher have a mission to help close.”