Word Book Day: Lagos pupils get 1000 books

As Nigeria joined the rest of the world to

celebrate the World Book Day, the Orderly
Society Trust (OST), on Thursday, donated no
fewer than 1000 books to primary school pupils
in Lagos.



The 1000 copies reading series were presented
simultaneously to Opebi Primary School, and
Makoko Primary School in Lagos.
Speaking at the presentation in Opebi Primary
School, Ikeja, the OST Preschool Project Officer,
Temitope Ajayi said the book donation is to
encourage the pupils to read and develop their
literacy skills.
Ajayi said: "The book donation is to encourage
young pupils in public schools to cultivate the
culture of reading.
"We realize some can read and they don't have
the books to read, beyond that, we also have
interest in those that cannot read.
"We choose the two schools because those are
the schools we have working relationship with.
We want the students to be able to read and do
their homework independently because we all
know that literacy pushes people to greater
things in life, so that they can contribute their
quota to the society and the world at large."
Also speaking, OST Programme Coordinator,
Hadiza Abdulazeez noted that the gesture is to
showcase the importance of reading and story
telling in igniting the creativity of a child.

She said, "We intend to use this campaign to
highlight the importance of reading and how
storytelling can ignite the curiosity and creativity
of a child.
“It's very important for every child to be
engaged through story telling and books, most
importantly they have to be taught how to think
creatively at a very young age," Abdulazeez said.
She urged the Federal and State government to
emphasize the importance of reading in public
schools.
"We want to encourage more public school to
dedicate time to reading children especially pre-
schoolers stories to encourage them to pick up
story books even if pictorial to cultivate a culture
of reading.

She said the NGO is also working with public
primary schools in developing good reading
skills through its Excel Literacy Project, with
three pre-schools in Lagos.
She said the OST is currently in 40 schools in
Lagos, teaching over 1500 students how to read
and write in public schools every Wednesday,
adding that "our goal is to teach our pupils how
to read effortlessly."
The Head mistress, Opebi Primary School, Ikeja,
Mrs Familua Grace while receiving the books
encouraged the pupils to inculcate reading
spirits.

Grace while calling on other well meaning
Nigerians to participate in better equipping
schools with needed materials noted that the
gesture by the NGO will help the pupils in
reading texts as well as pictorial representation
of the same texts.

Other activities to celebrate the World Book Day
include a story telling sessions where pre-
schoolers in both schools made the stories in
the reading series come alive with phoenix
materials during a class session.