The Rainforest of Reading Festival is designed to eradicate illiteracy among primary school students.
Saint Lucia Electricity Services Limited (LUCELEC) in collaboration with One World School House Foundation, last month held the annual Rainforest of Reading Festival.
The Rainforest of Reading Festival is an activity designed to eradicate illiteracy among students in grades three to five, in the participating countries of Grenada, Saint Lucia and Nevis.
The Foundation places twelve children's books from Canadian authors into each participating school. Over a three week period, students read the books before attending the reading festival where they meet the book authors and participate in a host of reading related activities.
Seven thousand, seven hundred students from all 74 primary schools on the island participated in the reading festival held both in Castries and Vieux Fort.
LUCELEC Corporate Communications Manager, Roger Joseph, said the One World School House Foundation’s mission of education, youth empowerment and access to tools to guarantee success is what compelled LUCELEC to support the initiative.
“We’ve supported the reading festival over the past three years because we recognize that many of the challenges at the upper primary and secondary school level that we’re being asked to assist with, have their genesis at the early childhood education level. We are also pleased that the festival focuses on increasing literacy and numeracy skills, key concepts and skills that should be grasped early on in a child’s life cycle to ensure they maximize educational opportunities,” he said.
The reading festival is endorsed by the Ministry of Education and held under the patronage of Her Excellency Governor General Dame Pearlette Louisy.
The organizers of the festival say they were motivated to help after learning about the infrastructure damage caused by Hurricane Ivan and Hurricane Tomas, as well as the economic impact of the global recession on the region.
This is the third year that LUCELEC has supported the festival in Saint Lucia.