Lottery grants have helped deliver theatrical performances of traditional tales and books to island children as part of a literacy programme.
A total of £70,000 of Channel Islands Lottery funding was distributed to Jersey youth organisations in 2024.
Every Child Our Future (ECOF) was one of four organisations to receive funding and were awarded £12,500 from the Jersey Community Foundation as part of a two-year grant.
The charity works alongside the Government of Jersey, the Education Department and Jersey library to provide literacy and numeracy support to children in Jersey primary-schools.
The grant has enabled the charity to deliver their performances created in partnership with Flair Entertainment in English and Portuguese to ten schools with the highest level of socio-economic need alongside satellite performances in the Library.
Every Child Our Future CEO, Cris Lakeman said: “We’ve been using the funding for early years performances and commissioned Flair Entertainment. The performances reach about 800 children, and we base these on either traditional tales or carefully selected books, it is very interactive.”
“The children will ask questions before and after about the story, it’s like a theatre in education. We’ve been able to deliver these performances in a dual language; they might be narrated in English with a dialogue in Portuguese, which is great, there are lots of Portuguese children in our schools who are absolutely delighted when they hear somebody performing in their language.”
Ms Lakeman added the importance of sparking children’s interest in reading, in the midst of a reading crisis, adding: “At the moment, there’s a massive decline in reading enjoyment and reading frequency. These performances bring a book to life, they are motivating children to want to read these stories and developing their language and love of books and reading.”
Speaking on feedback received from the performances, she shared the positive impact they have had on the schools selected using Jersey Premium eligible figures: “Taking children to a live performance is expensive. 25% of children in Jersey live in low income families. So how would they be able to afford to take their children to something like this? The grant enables us to deliver that, we can plan ahead knowing that we have the funding.”
Jon Taylor, Head of Lottery, said: “Working together through our partners and groups, the money generated from Channel Island Lottery ticket sales can give children and young people a helping hand towards a better future and we’re extremely proud to be continuing our mission to improve the lives of Islanders.”