BUY A BOOK, GIVE A BOOK

SHARING OUR LOVE OF BOOKS

Beaux Books are very proud to support Book Aid International. We operate a BUY ONE, GIVE ONE scheme.
For every book you buy from us, Beaux Books will fund one book to be sent to a community in need.
 

BOOKS CHANGE LIVES

Book Aid International is an amazing charity based in the UK. They send books around the globe to support some of the world’s most marginalised and poorest communities, where there are no or very few books. They supply books to schools, refugee camps, communities, prisons and hospitals. The books sent are brand new, up-to-date and relevant. Over half are children’s books to help children discover the joy of reading. They also send leisure reading books for all ages, vocational titles, higher education books and medicine and healthcare texts.

More information about Book Aid International and how you can support their work can be found here

Below are some personal stories of how the charity has changed lives through the power of books.
 

FLORENCE

Chesengoch is a tiny, remote village in Kenya’s vast Great Rift Valley where too many people still live with poverty and illiteracy. Book Aid International created school libraries in the area’s primary schools to support pupils, but those books are changing lives far beyond the classroom walls. When parents and grandparents saw children reading simple phonics books, they also saw an opportunity. So they demanded support from the government to fund an adult education teacher and began improving their own reading using the books provided by Book Aid International.

Some, like 60-year-old Florence, learned to read for the first time. She left school when she was seven to help out on her family’s farm and before the class could not even write her name. Reading has had far reaching impacts on her life. “Now I can read prices, so I get a fair price when shopping, and I can use a mobile phone!”

Beyond new practical skills, reading has also given Florence new confidence and, with that confidence, the ability to speak up for her family and her community. She and her classmates hope to expand their adult classes in the years to come, and together they are encouraging the community’s young people to begin reading early. Florence loves reading storybooks with her grandchildren and has become an advocate for the value of books and reading.

Florence reminds us that every book is an opportunity – to learn, to grow and to change for the better. The books provided by Book Aid International are an investment in whole communities, and together we can provide more books around the world and change lives.
 

FIKANAYO

Fikanayo in Malawi is a registered nurse midwife. She is currently studying for a Masters at the Malawi College of Medicine and also teaches other midwives. Limited resources mean that many universities, training colleges and even hospitals in Malawi struggle to provide staff and students with the up-to-date books they need to support their work and studies. Yet they are vital for the provision of safe healthcare and the training of the next generation of medical staff.

Fikanayo has achieved much in her career thanks to books provided by Book Aid International – and the information she is able to access is enabling her to provide high quality healthcare in her local area.

“I was motivated to become a nurse midwife because growing up I just had that passion – when someone was hurt I would be the first one to take care of them. The place where I studied to become a midwife had Book Aid International Books and now I am using them here for my Masters. I also use them to teach!

Working as a midwife here in Malawi – especially in the remote area where I work – it is like you are the chief consultant! You are the obstetrician, the gynaecologist, the anaesthetist, the paediatrician. You have to manage the baby, the mother, the pregnant women at the same time as being the midwife. You are manning the antenatal clinic, you are the one in charge in the labour ward, in the nursery. There are times that you are not sure what to do! For instance, you might have a lady in labour who has a condition you have never come across. If the books were not here it would have been very hard. The books elaborate and make it easier. The internet might tell you something but books are better. They give you more information. A book does wonders because you can look and see how you can go about something.”
 

AMIA

Kakuma Refugee Camp is a large refugee camp in North West Kenya which is home to close to 200,000 inhabitants from 14 different countries. Many have fled conflict and violence in their home countries and are hoping to find safety in Kakuma and the chance to get an education and build a better future for themselves.  However, getting a good education in Kakuma is hard. Schools are oversubscribed and vastly under-resourced. Teachers are largely students’ only source of information. In addition, without electricity at home, pupils’ time to read, revise and complete homework ends when it gets dark.

Book Aid International’s Solar Homework Club project aims to remove some of these barriers to reading and learning by providing solar lamps and new curriculum support books and novels for secondary school students to borrow and use to support their studies after school. The project is making a particular difference for girls in the camp, including Amia:

“My parents are happy that I am in school. But few families are like our families. They do not know the importance of education. They keep their daughters at home to cook and fetch water. Before the teacher comes to class you have to go through the book and look at the topic. When the teacher comes, you understand more. But if there are no books you cannot get the first-hand information that you want. It can lower your grade. The storybooks also have words of encouragement because most of the books talk about students who faced challenges and were successful in the end. They give us motivation! The solar lamps mean we have maximum time for revisions and so I get good grades. My parents are very happy about it and know that I will become successful.”