On Sunday, 8 September a team from EIP will be taking part in a charity cycle ride from London to Brighton. The ride is in aid of Beanstalk.

 

Beanstalk is a national charity that recruits, vets, trains and supports volunteers to work in primary schools with children who have fallen behind with their reading.  It has been shown that children, even those as young as eight, who fall behind with their reading, never catch up.  These children can become withdrawn and disruptive leading to a downward cycle of exclusion and truancy.  When they reach their teenage years they may become gang members and find themselves drawn into a life of crime.  Not being able to read properly, and thus hold down jobs, means that their chances of escaping this life become very slim.

 

 

Studies have shown that 70% of pupils permanently excluded from school have difficulties with basic literacy skills. 25% of young offenders are said to have reading skills below those of the average seven-year-old, with 60% of the overall prison population being said to have difficulties with basic literacy.

 

 

A prison service study asked prisoners, on reception, to take a literacy test devised by the Basic Skills Agency. The test is approximately equivalent to the reading skills expected of nine to ten year-olds. 60% of the prisoners taking the test had problems with literacy, with 40% of the total having severe problems. Similarly, the Social Exclusion Unit has reported that 50% of prisoners have reading skills at or below the level expected of an 11-year-old child.

 

 

But leaving aside the criminal / jobs aspect, reading, in itself, is a precious gift which should be available to all.  Reading fires the imagination and opens up a whole new world.  It enables people to develop.  With reading skills everything is possible; without them nothing is possible.  To quote the Beanstalk motto “Read, Grow, Succeed”.

 

 

The photograph above shows members of the EIP cycle team at a school in the locality of our office in London.  Beanstalk have agreed that all funds raised by EIP will be earmarked for schools in this locality.

 

 

If you would like to read more about the work of Beanstalk visit http://www.beanstalkcharity.org.uk

 

 

If you would like to read more about the effect of illiteracy, particularly on young men, we suggest you read the report “Wasted: The betrayal of white working-class and black Caribbean boys” by Harriet Sergeant published by the Centre for Policy Studies, or her book “Among the Hoods”.