About STORIES4SCHOOLS

STORIES4SCHOOLS involves schools creating illustrated story books that are shared with schools in other parts of the world.

Originally the project aimed to support children in Malawi for whom English was a requirement to progress through the school system even though it isn’t their normal spoken language.

I had organised a number of expeditions to Malawi and Tanzania and supported young volunteers from the UK to work with schools and orphan projects. A regular request on our visits had been for support with English language skills. STORIES4SCHOOLS was designed to help towards this on a more lasting basis than our short visits could achieve.

The Royal Society of Arts provided initial funding to develop STORIES4SCHOOLS and over a number of years I worked with schools across the UK to create a number of story books. Typically this involved classes learning about children in Malawi and then working together to write and illustrate stories that would be suitable for children in Malawi to read. Schools would then sell copies of the books they created to cover their costs and to fund the costs of distributing copies to schools and projects in Malawi.

In time books were distributed further afield including to schools in Uganda and we were even able to work with a school in Malawi to have their own book of stories published (see Mbame School).

These days I’m only able to work with a small number of schools as each book takes a considerable amount of time to create however you’re welcome to get in touch and check availability if you’d like to give it a go.

You can get an idea of what’s involved by looking through the Planning & Resource Pack.