Literacy charity launches urgent appeal for help
A Portsmouth charity, which helps dozens of children to read and write, has launched an urgent appeal for funds
The Literacy Hubs is warning without urgent financial support its work may cease.
Set up by Becca Dean MBE, the charity has suffered due to rising costs that are impacting both schools and funders.
This year alone it has supported more than 100 pupils and has plans to support many more beyond.
Nearly a quarter of children in Portsmouth live in poverty, and children from low-income backgrounds are twice as likely to fall below expected levels of reading and writing by age 11, affecting their future prospects, health and wellbeing.
Jackie Rainford, chair of Trustees, said: "The Literacy Hubs provide unique, creative and adventurous learning environments that inspire young people, from the least advantaged communities, to improve their literacy skills and fall in love with reading and writing.
The team and volunteers achieve amazing results with the children.
The pirates and sailors, as they are known, make amazing progress in the year they are with us; some improve their reading and writing age by up to three years and their overall confidence improves dramatically.
“We cannot continue to do this vital work without urgent financial support.
With your support we can continue to deliver successful, life-changing interventions in Portsmouth and look to share our good practice to other areas of the country.
All donations will ensure that children from some of the most deprived areas of Portsmouth get the additional support that they need, and importantly we can also begin to create waves of literacy support across the country.
Without good literacy skills, children do not reach their potential.
The Literacy Hubs’s programme is helping to change that."