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Reading for Life started in mid-2003 with a trial in primary schools in Epping and Marrickville in NSW and two in Petone and Newmarket in New Zealand.
Forty-four children and volunteers participated and achieved such outstanding results that Unilever Australasia decided to expand the program in 2004 to include schools in Knoxfield and Camberwell in Victoria.
2010 Goal
In its first two years, Reading for Life was developed, trialed and undertaken exclusively with Unilever Australasia and its staff.
By the end of 2004, although the total number of children and volunteers who had participated in programs totalled only 133, Unilever Australasia and its employees were so happy with the results that the company announced that Reading for Life would become the its flagship community involvement initiative.
Together with Learning Links, Unilever Australasia has set an ambitious goal of helping 10,000 children through Reading for Life by 2010.
New corporates
In 2005, Unilever Australasia and Learning Links undertook to find other companies who were looking for a similar volunteer program for their employees and were interested in helping to improve education outcomes for children struggling with reading at school.
In mid-2005, the Sydney office of legal firm Allens Arthur Robinson became the first corporate to join Unilever to support the program, offering to fund and provide volunteers for one program and fund another for community volunteers.
At the same time, Genworth Financial were also looking for programs that involved volunteering for their staff and they too decided to trial Reading for Life with their employees in the Sydney CBD.
Guildford Bowling Club through the NSW Community Expenditure and Development Scheme became the first registered club to become involved, funding a program in late 2005 for volunteers in a local school in the Guildford area.
Liaison with University of Western Sydney
In 2005, a new model of delivery was developed using the expertise of Masters of Psychology students from the University of Western Sydney to deliver the program in Sydney metropolitan schools.
The students used the program as part of the practical requirement of their course and were able to not only work with children, but also assess them both before and after completion of each 15 week period. The students helped 164 children in 10 schools in the second half of 2005.
Funding for a country school
In late 2005, the program received the news that the H.V. McKay Charitable Foundation had approved funding for a Reading for Life program in a school in Coffs Harbour on the far north coast of NSW.
This was the first time a foundation had funded the program and the first time the program was able to move outside a major metropolitan location and utilise local community volunteers to help children who had fallen behind in their reading.
Corporate expansion in Victoria
In early 2006, a consortium of major corporates based in Melbourne decided to trial Reading for Life as a community involvement initiative.
Under the banner of Melbourne Cares, four members of the consortium, ANZ, Cadbury-Schweppes, Rio Tinto and Amcor all provided volunteers for programs in a range of Melbourne suburban schools.
The programs were so successful, two of the companies, ANZ and Cadbury-Schweppes decided to expand the program to their other offices around Australia and in New Zealand.
At the same time an advertising agency, Mitchell and Partners, came on board in Victoria and NSW; their employees helping children from Middle Park school in Victoria and Ultimo Public School in NSW.
In New Zealand, Hutt City Council joined the program to assist Naenae School, while in NSW, students from SIFE at the University of NSW raised funds to be able to help children falling behind in reading at Daceyville Public School.
Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage grant in partnership with the University of Western Sydney SELF Research Centre
In late 2005, Learning Links, in partnership with Unilever Australasia and the University of Western Sydney SELF Research Centre, applied for an Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage grant to support a three year research project on Reading for Life. The application was backed by leading education specialists, Professor Rhonda Craven and Professor Tony Vinson.
The three-year Commonwealth Government grant was approved in July 2006.
The grant will enable researchers to fully test the program and its results in accordance with rigorous academic standards and help measure the differences in children’s reading and self-esteem generated by the program.
Counting for Life
The success of Genworth Financial’s participation in Reading for Life has lead to the company commissioning Learning Links to develop Counting for Life, a similar volunteer-based program helping primary school children struggling with numeracy.
Counting for Life will be trailed in late 2006 and will be a vital part of Genworth Financial’s commitment to helping children in the community.
Progress towards the 2010 goal
By end-2006, 1,100 children had been helped through Reading for Life in schools across Australia and New Zealand.
The commitment of Unilever Australasia and other corporate partners and the feelings of accomplishment and excitement that the program engenders are difficult to quantify but none-the-less very real. The program continues to go from strength to strength as more and more companies and funding bodies value the outcomes it generates for both employees and children.
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