Civil servants celebrated International Literacy Day (Friday, 8 September 2017) by reading aloud and donating books, to Lighthouse School students.

Seven volunteers from the Portfolio of the Civil Service and the Internal Audit Service (IAS) took part in the first such initiative of its kind at the school, reading to 25 students ages six to 10 years old.

Headed up by the Deputy Director of the IAS, Lauren Knight, the volunteers read to students with autistic spectrum disorder, mild learning disabilities and severe learning disabilities.

Students answered questions about each book during the interactive session to promote understanding.

“Our students got a lot out of the initiative,” said the school’s Principal, Elroy Bryan.

“International Literacy Day is a wonderful opportunity for this kind of outreach and reinforces the love of reading and learning we want to instil. The students had been looking forward to this all week and volunteer reading was a great success.”

“Ultimately, our goal was to support the school’s teachers and parents in fostering a love of the written and spoken word. I believe International Literacy Day is a fun and useful way of promoting this,” said event organiser, Mrs. Knight.

Principal Bryan confirmed that the initiative will be repeated in the future and thanked the volunteers for giving up an hour of their working day.

“The initiative is part of our Civil Service community outreach programme,” said the Deputy Governor Franz Manderson. “I commend civil servants for finding both personal as well as professional channels, for improving the lives of those we serve.”

The Civil Service donated 23 new books to the school library.