English PEN's Readers & Writers Programme
Readers & Writers is evolving
After eight years of work focused on schools and prisons, the programme is developing an exciting new strand of work with refugee and migrant communities. Launching early in 2009, this new phase of Readers & Writers will see English PEN take some of Britain's leading writers into our newest communitities. The aim of this new project goes back to the founding vision of PEN in 1921: to use literature as a means of dialogue between different cultures. By developing the writing skills of first-generation Britons, we hope to open up their experiences to wider understanding, to introduce new voices to the literary world, and to nurture respect between members of different communities within contemporary British society. Readers & Writers will continue to work with schoolchildren and prisoners.
What does the programme do?
Readers & Writers brings English PEN's most valuable resource - writers - into direct contact with readers of all ages and backgrounds, with lasting benefits to both. The programme aims to widen access to literary culture by arranging writer visits to children and adults in disadvantaged communities.
In brief, the programme:
- Promotes literacy and literature in under-served communities
- Funds author visits & donates books to sites without the resources or means to do so independently
- Motivates struggling or reluctant readers with the excitement of a unique, memorable event
- Challenges pre-conceptions of who can be a writer and what reading is all about
- Inspires readers young and old through interaction with a 'real writer'
- Opens minds through stories and poems that are accessible and themes that are relevant and meaningful
- Encourages the use of literature as a source of pleasure and as a tool for personal growth
- Supports teachers, education officers and literacy workers in inspiring their students
- Demystifies the worlds of literature and publishing
To read about the aims of the Readers and Writers Programme, please click here .
To find out more about how the programme works, please click here.