The future is bright for our Hubs in Nottingham and Peterborough, thanks to an injection of National Lottery funding from the Big Lottery Fund.
This new financial boost will support Read on Nottingham and Peterborough Reads to continue their work in communities, equipping local children with the vital literacy skills needed to fulfil their potential. It comes from the Big Lottery Fund, the largest community funder in the UK.
The National Literacy Trust Hub in Nottingham, known locally as Read On Nottingham, is a community-driven campaign, launched in partnership with Nottingham City Council and Small Steps Big Changes in April 2018. In its first eight months, the campaign has already given away thousands of books at several book-gifting events, hosted a Dads Reading Selfies competition on social media and set up a book swap project with Notts County Football Club.
Our Hub in Peterborough launched in 2014 in partnership with Peterborough City Council and is known locally as Peterborough Reads. Working alongside Peterborough City Council and Vivacity, we launched a Vision for Reading in Peterborough in January 2018 to establish reading as a priority for every service, business and community group, outlining how Peterborough can work together to give children improved opportunities through reading.
With a new funding boost, both Hubs will set out a calendar of engaging and exciting campaign activity to:
- Ensure children are ready to start school by engaging parents and early years settings
- Equip young people at secondary school with the literacy skills they need to access the world of work
- Bring literacy to the heart of the community
Read On Nottingham will start the new year of funding by working with young people to identify a list of the city's 100 most popular children's books as part of celebrations for Nottingham City Council's focus on literacy in spring 2019.
The Peterborough Hub will look to support Peterborough’s Year of Reading from September 2019 to September 2020 with a large-scale community event to celebrate the 30th anniversary of We’re Going on a Bear Hunt and culminating in the launch of a BookBench trail in summer 2020.