Hi – we are brothers – James and Colin Bloom. We live in New York City and are dual USA/South African citizens (our dad is South African and our mom is American). Although we live in the USA, we visit South Africa often.
Some take literacy for granted. Others think it’s a privilege. We believe that literacy is a human right. In 2018, we founded Libraries for Literacy to create libraries for under-resourced South African schools.
In addition to creating Libraries for Literacy, we’ve taught free after school classes to underprivileged kids at the Washington Heights Y since 2018 and each summer we return to the libraries we’ve established to teach literacy and work with the librarian and teachers to promote a culture of library usage, book borrowing and literacy support.
In 2018, we were walking down a grocery store aisle in South Africa when we noticed that all the packaged food had pictures of what was inside. We were used to packages that just had the name of the food, such as “Campbell’s Tomato Soup.”
When we asked our dad why all the food had pictures, he explained that a lot of people in South Africa could not read.
When we researched South African literacy, we discovered that 78% of South African 10-year-olds cannot read for meaning and only 8% of public schools have a library. We believe that literacy is a fundamental human right. Our commitment to provide greater access to books and improve literacy in South Africa led us to found Libraries for Literacy.
We are thankful for the partnership and support of the many organizations we work with.
Frederick Douglass