
- Championing Literacy
Schools Unite for UNESCO's World Book Day Challenge
The schools hold a collective action around UNESCO’s World Book Day on April 23th. The school which collects the highest average number of books per student wins the annual World Book Day Award.

World Book Day
Collecting Books
Every year many schools collect books for Read to Grow around UNESCO’s World Book Day. These are mainly Dutch and European International Schools.
- By asking students and pupils to see if there are books at home or in the family that can be donated to Read to Grow.
- Through donating books from your school library.
The course of action!
Each year, participating schools will start the World Book Day Action in February.
Read to Grow will make contact with your school and send information and posters in March, which your school can use to make the action known among the students.
From mid-April to the end of April, students can donate books to your collection at school.
The book collection is around the 23rd of April on World Book Day.
In May/June the transport of books from your school to the Read to Grow storage in The Netherlands will be arranged within a circle of 300 to 400 kilometers from our storage (when there are several addresses I the area or there is a good number of books).
But a minimum of 100 books should be collected. For international schools outside this circle, we hope the school can find a sponsor of transport to our storage.
Before the end of each year, it will be clear which school collected the highest average of books and won the World Book Day Award.
The World Book Day Award will be handed over in the new school year.

3 book quality guidelines
Read to Grow considers it of high importance that the books that we donate to our receivers are useful and of good quality. We always ask schools and students only to donate books that they themselves would like to receive.
1
The books are new or slightly used. We cannot use books that are broken, dirty or written all over.
2
The books have to be completely in English or French, Spanish or Portuguese. Different languages are not useful in the developing countries where we work.
3
The subjects of the books have to be neutral. Read to Grow is a neutral organization and does not accept religious, political, violent or sexually oriented books.

The giving child
On October 1st, 2005, in cooperation with the municipality of Helmond the statue “The Giving Child” was unveiled in the new district Brandevoort.
The Giving Child is a symbol for all pupils and students from European schools who have donated books to pupils and students in developing countries through Read to Grow.
The Giving Child is also the symbol for all children who share their material wealth with children in developing countries. The Giving Child has been unveiled by children, along with Agnes van Ardenne, the Minister for Overseas Development.
The statue, which was the first art object in the district, was designed and made by a famous local artist Willem van der Velden. The picture is of a child who extends her arms to give a book. A dove is taking off to bring the book to a project in a developing country.