The Context
Established in 1847, Belfast Harbour is Belfast's port authority and operates the principal maritime gateway on the island of Ireland. The harbour estate covers an area of 2,000 acres representing 20% of Belfast City area and is also Northern Ireland's logistics and distribution hub and home to major businesses including Baker McKenzie, Harland & Wolff, Capita, CitiGroup and Bombardier.
BookTrust NI is the NI division of the UK BookTrust charity. The core aim of this organisation is to ensure that everyone has access to books in their home and is inspired to engage with the world of reading for pleasure and to improve their life chances. Through their reader development programmes and work as an arts organisation, BookTrust in Northern Ireland makes a positive impact on children, families and local communities.
These organisations both recognise that a love of books changes lives; it is also widely acknowledged that reading in the early years is particularly crucial in ensuring successful child development.
With this in mind, Belfast Harbour and BookTrust NI wanted to find a way to give back to their communities to ensure all local children had the best start in their literacy journey...
The Solution
Introduced by Arts & Business NI, who identified a clear alignment in values between the two organisations, BookTrust NI and Belfast Harbour established a mutually beneficial partnership to encourage early book sharing by gifting 1,000 book packs to Sure Start families across Belfast. The Sure Start programme works specifically to support parents with children aged under four years old, living in disadvantaged areas in Northern Ireland.
The partners extended their reading for pleasure programme to give these families access to a wider range of books and promote a culture of reading within the home, by providing each of the nine Belfast Sure Start projects with a Big Belfast Harbour Book Box.
As the leading literacy charity in the UK, BookTrust brought their expertise in books for children, young people and adults; they designed and supported this exciting literacy resource to encourage Belfast families to share books and rhymes together. The box also contained guidance and resources for staff and parents. Each Book Box, branded with Belfast Harbour logo, contained 100 baby and toddler books, 50 finger puppets, Top Tips for parents (available in 32 languages) and themed book lists such as ‘all about me’, ‘starting school’ and ‘difference’ (abilities, race, families). BookTrust NI worked with Sure Start staff, talking through the contents and the aims of the project, ensuring resources were utilised on the ground for maximum impact.
The Big Belfast Harbour Book Boxes all found their way to local children, and the feedback via Sure Start reported very positive engagement with the books and resources within.
The partnership not only helped young kids to discover the joy of reading, it also successfully enabled Belfast Harbour in achieving its core strategic objectives of supporting young people in their educational needs, whilst also embedding the organisation in the community and enhancing its support of the Arts.
“It is a pleasure to support BookTrust, who run vital projects for the community. Literacy is an essential part of a child’s development and it is so important to instil story time for both the parents and child. The Big Belfast Harbour Book Box enables parents to invest in their children’s development, which will ultimately improve language and cognitive advancement- and most importantly, enjoy some quality time with their young children.”
Jenni Barkley, Communications and Corporate Responsibility Manager, Belfast Harbour
“This ongoing partnership with Belfast Harbour means we are able to continue our work to get children reading across Northern Ireland.”
Liz Canning, Head of Country in Northern Ireland, BookTrust
