Literacy has always played an integral role in philanthropy. In America alone major philanthropists such as Bill Gates, the Walton Family\u00a0and Broad\u00a0Foundations spend hundreds of millions of dollars annually on improving the education system. Gates reportedly\u00a0spent\u00a0nearly $390 million in 2017 alone on education \u2013 and there is a clear reason why.<\/p>\n
Whilst, there have been significant leaps in ensuring everyone has access to education globally (over the last 65 years global literacy has increased 4% every 5 years \u2013 from 42% in 1960 to 86% in 2015), we are still not there yet.<\/p>\n
This week\u00a0has\u00a0been a reminder that literacy is still front and centre for many. On Monday it was International Literacy Day \u2013 a day which provided the opportunity for governments, civil society and stakeholders to celebrate improvements in world literacy rates and reflect on challenges that still exist.\u00a0Globally,\u00a0the aim of the UN\u2019s Sustainable Development Goals\u00a0is\u00a0to tackle this through ensuring all youth and a substantial proportion of adults, both men and women, are literate by 2030.<\/p>\n
Whilst there has been good progress, educational inequality continues to be a global crisis.\u00a0But as it pertains to\u00a0philanthropists, this has to be more than putting their names above the door \u2013 but using their access to a combination of their capital, their network and their corporate knowledge to help identify programmes and initiatives that can deliver far reaching impact.<\/p>\n
This is\u00a0an\u00a0approach we\u00a0adopted\u00a0at\u00a0the Chen Yet-Sen Family Foundation\u00a0over the last 20 years, in our dedication to building domain expertise in early childhood literacy.\u00a0 We hope that with this accumulated knowledge over the decades it has enabled us to deliver greater impact to\u00a0the learning and personal development of the next generation. We work with local champions, support them and drive sustainability for innovative\u00a0programmes\u00a0by not only providing them with funding but also offering relevant expertise, providing support on project planning, tracking and evaluation to ensure high impact services are delivered to beneficiaries.<\/p>\n
On occasion, where a literacy gap emerges, we have also developed our own programmes.\u00a0The\u00a0Feng Zikai Chinese Children\u2019s Picture Book Award\u00a0was created to address the major shortfall in original Chinese language picture books.\u00a0 We seek the most creative entries, to encourage a new generation of authors, illustrators editors and publishers in The Chinese language world, but also to celebrate the power of picture books in nurturing a love of reading at an early age.\u00a0 And encouraging culturally recognisable stories will play a major part in stimulating a new readership.<\/p>\n
But where so much emphasis is placed on\u00a0literacy\u00a0globally, closer to home in Hong Kong, we have much to celebrate in our achievements in this arena.\u00a0 Hong Kong\u2019s challenge is to encourage children to actually\u00a0enjoy<\/strong>\u00a0reading which PIRLS data in 2016 \u00a0brought into sharp focus, stating that Hong Kong students ranked 50th\u00a0(out of 50 countries) in their \u201cengagement in reading lessons\u201d.\u00a0 Again, we introduced a new programme, based on a successful venture in California, called\u00a0Bring Me a Book Hong Kong. The organisation\u00a0has gone on to achieve great success independently and continues to champion the encouragement of an early love of reading.\u00a0They\u00a0provide transformational training for parents and educators,\u00a0libraries of\u00a0Chinese and English books\u00a0in underserved communities, and finally, ensure\u00a0Hong Kong\u00a0hosts\u00a0some of the world\u2019s finest children\u2019s\u00a0authors and literacy experts\u00a0for the benefit of the city\u2019s youngsters.<\/p>\n Philanthropy is a powerful way to ensure that we are continuing to invest in the next generation. But the problems won\u2019t be addressed by simply giving money away, but for philanthropists to think innovatively about problems and solutions.\u00a0 They need to seek the strongest partnerships to scale these brilliant ideas and maximise its impact \u2013and nurturing the next generation is a great place to start.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Literacy has always played an integral role in philanthropy. In America alone major philanthropists such as Bill Gates, the Walton Family\u00a0and Broad\u00a0Foundations spend hundreds of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":578,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n