At the end of last year the Learning Trust and Team Hackney launched ‘Words Unite’ which is a community campaign to get Hackney reading. We talked to the CEO of the Learning Trust, Alan Wood, about the campaign.
He described ‘Words Unite’ as a big campaign that encourages people of all ages to read more or to start reading. He said that reading is not only fundamental, but it can also be fun if you make it. “We want people to support each other in their reading,” he said, “And to publicise the excitement and the enjoyment of reading.”
When asked if he thought people in Hackney read less than other parts of the country he said he thought there were more challenges in Hackney. “It’s more difficult to participate as an equal if you don’t read,” he said. “People say you don’t need books anymore because of the internet but you still need to read the internet and you can’t communicate unless you have a big range of words available to you.”
He talked about a special project in Hackney called Project Genie which brings together reading with ideas about Global Warming. “Project Genie is based upon a book,” he said, “which has ideas about global warming and what to do about it. The project has been launched by Lauriston primary school who have used the book’s ideas together with an OWL, which is a little thing that measures your carbon output. In just one week their output was cut by 50%.”
From the interview we came to think that ‘Words Unite’ means that words bring people together, but it also means your connection with the words and with the books you read. When you read the words stay with you and you can’t just throw them away.
For more information on ‘Words Unite’ see www.gethackneyreading.com
About this story
This story was produced by Kamil Boriel, 12, Ola Adeniran, 12, and Neylissa Neto da Silva, 11. It was published in Hackney Today.
