BooksPals

What we do

Reading is fundamental to aid a child’s all-round development. It is a key factor for a child to become successful at school. It also helps to enlighten the child about the societal happenings, it develops the child’s imagination and helps to improve alertness. However, for many children, reading looks like the last thing to do. Some even see it as a punishment, especially in this digital world and this is because they have not discovered the fun in reading.

Bookspals is a reading club that aims to bring children together to read, share books, reviews and swap stories and also earn rewards while at it. Thus, bringing together, what a child might feel he/she has been obligated to lose by reading– fun and effective social interactions while increasing their intelligence, developing their minds and interests. Bookspals also aim at improving parents-child interaction and offer the opportunity of reading more books at less cost.

Bookpals is affiliated with GAIN (Giving Aid International Network) whose collective purpose is to inspire, nurture and empower the young generation in Africa to become future, impactful leaders.

Mission Statement

Our mission is to help children develop a reading culture and make them lifelong readers by engaging in activities and programs that are appropriate, conducive, and fun for children.

Vision

Our vision is to have at least a hundred thousand (100,000) members in a year in several locations in Nigeria to develop a reading culture among the young generation which will consequently promote their total well-being, help them become future leaders and critical thinkers. We plan to expand beyond Nigeria and connects with other Countries in Africa in the future.

Core Values

We uphold these values that makes our vision and mission a reality.

We recognize the importance of diligence and we work to achieve our goals by being committed devotedly to our cause. We work persistently to spread the news of the importance of reading to the young children to diverse communities.

We believe that enthusiasm is the fuel that drives commitment. Therefore, we aim to help each child to be enthusiastic by focusing on his/her interests while introducing new aspects he/she can learn from. We are also enthusiastic in seeing that readers truly become leaders, so we focus on the improvements that each participant make and commend them for it.

We adequately optimize the opportunities we have to achieve our goals through our partnerships with other organizations and the social media. We also encourage our participants to be resourceful by reading more books for less cost.

We admit that every child is unique in his/her own way and we incorporate respect while dealing with every child and also encourage the children to be respectful of one another as they interact together. We ensure that the children do not interrupt one another, and we hold the stance that there is no wrong answer or opinion.

We honour our words and principles. We are faithful to what we represent and the message we pass across to the children and society, which is that reading is fun and helps to develop one to become a great leader.

Temitope Fashakin, FOUNDER

Temitope Fashakin did not understand the value of reading earlier although he had a high school principal, late Chief Iroha, who used to tell him it was crucial to have a novel or book to read every time. Temitope struggled to build this habit himself until he met his friend, Babatunde Rotimi at the University. In 1999, Temitope helped Babatunde to turn in a story for an international competition, which earned Babatunde a BBC award and first position in the world. Marvelled at Babatunde’s exceptional feat, Temitope asked his friend how he was able to achieve this. Babatunde told Temitope “Knowledge has no boundaries and knows no limitations, once you identify your source.” Babatunde added that his source was reading. Currently, Babatunde is; a world-class playwright, a recipient of the 2013 Caine prize, a fellow of Bellagio Center, and has travelled to over 20 countries that were fully sponsored by different organisations.
The motivation for bookspals started after Temitope Fashakin witnessed how reading enhanced the success of his friend, Babatunde Rotimi. Since being aware of how much success reading could afford one, Temitope became passionate about reading and helping others-particularly young children to develop a productive reading culture. As a result, he started bookspals to help children between the age of 6-16 to develop an ardent, passionate reading culture and to also reward them for being consistent with this habit.

Ogechukwu Ann Okoye, CO-FOUNDER

Ogechukwu Ann Okoye is a seasoned educator and coach who has spent her career teaching and preparing students for various English language examinations both locally and internationally. She is a passionate teacher who has worked at various levels of schools where she engages learners in the studies of language skills of listening, reading , writing and speaking as well as literatures.
With a B.A.Ed in English language from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka and an M.Ed in Teacher Education with a specialty in Language Education from the University of Ibadan, She currently works at Oritamefa Baptist Model ‘A’ level college, Ibadan as a Cambridge Advanced level teacher of English as a Second Langauage and Literature -in- English. She is also an experienced English language tutor and coach for English Proficiency Tests such as IELTS, TOEFL, GRE, SAT, etc. In this capacity, she has suscessfully prepared and presented about a hundred students for various international examination with about 90 % success rate. Additionally, she provides home tutor services aimed at improving literacy for various categories of students who struggle with reading and writing related issues.
Ms Okoye is a kind hearted, friendly, professional and highly trained teacher. She is a great communicator and listener, and have the ability to understand a student’s needs. She loves creating lesson plans, oragnising work flow and interacting with the students hence creating a safe, friendly and productive enviroment for her students to learn is a top priority.
She is interested in researches on language education with specialization on literacy education where she hopes to provide resources for both pre and in-service teachers of language on literacy related issues thereby bridging gaps created in classroom learning.

Our drive

Program Impact
Bookspals is committed to improving children’s reading interest while ensuring that their engagement to the activities develops their physiological, social, academic status. We achieve this by placing the children in different clubs with a maximum number of 10 children in each club.

Save Cost
The club draws up a list of 10 books in each club for each child to buy one. After reading the book for the week, the readers in each club then swap the books among themselves, which means, that a child buys one book and gets the opportunity to read 9 more books for free! That saves cost for the parents!

Books Selection
Books are selected based on the interests and then the reading level of the book club participants. The genre of books are not limited to any sector. The books to be read are also to be age appropriate and approved by the board governing the book club activities.

Meeting time
Participants meet both online and offline. For Online meetings, certain social media platforms or meeting applications are deployed. For physical meetings, a neutral comfortable place is selected for a meet up. Meeting time and venue are deliberated on and shared as appropriate.

Grouping
Club members are grouped according to their age and reading affinity. We have four classes of readers: