Big Book Handover

Published on isbi School News dated Monday 20th of July 2015

Hundreds of students around West London have been donating their used revision guides to charity after their exams. Over 1000 books have been collected and are now on their way to good causes. The ‘Big Book Handover’, organised by Ben Farmer, a Year 11 pupil at St Benedict’s School in Ealing, will help distribute the books to schools across Africa with education charity ‘Books to Africa’ and in UK charity shops with the mental health charity, ‘Mind’. Ben Farmer commented: “I know many people get distracted revising but I didn’t expect to be coming up with a massive project during my GCSEs! This is a great chance for students to put to good use their old books which would otherwise go to waste. It is always important to recognise that we are in a fortunate position to even sit these exams so I feel that starting this campaign is a good way to take action on this issue.” So far, the largest contributor to the scheme is St Benedict’s School. Several departments are also using this opportunity to offer their old textbooks to the cause. Over 600 books were collected from the Year 11 pupils as well as from many staff. Other schools involved in the campaign include St Augustine’s Priory, Cardinal Vaughan, Gumley House, Godolphin & Latymer. The project is entirely student led with pupils in each schools organising their own collections then passing the books on to the central coordinator. Andrew Vale, Head of Retail at ‘Mind’ said: “We are very grateful for the kind contributions made by the students. It will certainly help us with our fundraising efforts to continue our work to support people who experience mental health problems, and raise awareness.” Tonson Sango from ‘Books to Africa’ said: “We’re glad the Big Book Handover will be donating books to us. Books to Africa aims to ship one million books to Africa by December 2015 as its contribution towards the Millennium Development Goals. To achieve this, the charity needs to ship more than 62,500 books every month at a cost of £15,000 per month. The books received by students from London will make a huge difference.”