Tuesday, 19th March 2024
To guardian.ng
Search

Lawyer set to lift reading culture with libraries

By Sunday Aikulola
15 August 2021   |   3:00 am
A legal practitioner, Olamide Adeleye, who is the principal counsel of YB and CO Solicitors, has decided to help young Nigerians, students, especially the public school students

A legal practitioner, Olamide Adeleye, who is the principal counsel of YB and CO Solicitors, has decided to help young Nigerians, students, especially the public school students, to develop their reading habits and love for books through her law firm’s corporate social responsibility (CSR).

St. David’s Anglican Primary School library that is being renovated and refurbished by Adeleye


To this end, she has created an online bookshop for the purpose of using the profit made from book sales to renovate public school libraries.

The initiative, which already exists as an online bookshop with over 500 books, was formally launched along with its renovation projects recently.

The event brought together art collectors and enthusiasts as the lawyer, who is also a poet, displayed her poetry-like artworks on frames.

Bargain Books Najia, which is an online book its a profit to fund the renovation of six modern libraries, as well as, help public school students to imbibe the culture of reading.

“We are trying to change the mindset of the students for them to see the other side of life aside from what they get from their school lessons and in news by providing books at a cheaper price. And the proceeds from the sales of books and the exhibitions would be dedicated to building a modern library for public schools, beginning with St. David’s Anglican School,” Adeleye said.

She decried the poor reading culture in the country, especially among children, stating they are out to raise thought leaders.

She said: “There is a dearth of reading among the typical Nigerian kids you come across every day, however, they cannot be blamed for this because the books are not readily available, and the available ones are not accessible to the regular Nigerian child.

“Reading will stimulate and challenge their thinking abilities to be innovators or content providers. And Bargain Books is set to raise thought leaders from communities and give every child an opportunity to be all they aspire to be, also raising the standard of the nation and enlighten children to bring light to the society.”

While linking the poor reading culture to the lack of public libraries, she urged government and schools managers to establish libraries to encourage reading among children.

On her source of inspiration, she said: “My children are the inspiration behind this idea, they are privileged to attend one of the best schools in the world, where they have access to the best material academically as far as back when they were in the crèche the British school will insist that they must go home with a book a day till they graduated.”

“I felt really bad that if this can be happening in schools where parents pay a lot – what it is even worse in the public schools. The lack of libraries has not helped matters. Seeing how the book-a-day system really helped the children to develop the habit of reading at an early stage, I came to the opinion that if the reading culture among our wards is to be helped and improved, the government should establish public libraries in different local government and in public schools. School managers should also create libraries in their schools that would be stocked with educative and creative literature.

“This is what was encouraged me to start bargain books I want to help society and develop the reading habit of young Nigerians; and to expose and make them innovators/content providers through reading instead of me complaining about corruption insecurity and kidnapping in the nation.”

0 Comments