The Rainbow Book Club (RBC)

The Rainbow Book Club (RBC)

Diving into a good book opens up a whole world of knowledge starting from a very young age. Exposure to vocabulary through reading (particularly reading children’s books) not only leads to a higher score on reading tests but also higher scores on general tests of intelligence for children. Plus, stronger early reading skills may mean higher intelligence later in life.

The Rainbow Book Club (RBC) is a non-profit organization (NGO) that seeks to contribute to the development of African society by encouraging children and young adults to read. RBC, an official UNESCO club, is part of the Rainbow Foundation.

With the objective of encouraging reading for personal and social development, The Rainbow Book Club was founded in 2005 by Koko Kalango. Koko Kalango has over 30 years of work experience in education, communication, and administration. She has worked in Nigeria, the United Kingdom, and as a volunteer in the United States of America. In 2014, she was named as the Project Director of UNESCO World Book Capital.

As it was founded, The Rainbow Book Club kick-started the ‘Get Nigeria Reading again!’ Campaign to create awareness on the correlation between reading and building a successful nation. Since then, RBC has enlisted the participation of high-profile authors, captains of industries, government officials and celebrities to read to and interact with children over carefully chosen books to inspire children to read and teach them good values. The readers use the stories to communicate lessons in character and share with the children how books have shaped their lives. Over 1000 children from over 100 schools have taken part in these reading sessions.

Since 2005, the RBC has run over 200 book clubs in primary and secondary schools, set up 13 libraries, organised training for over 500 book club facilitators, organised over 42 reading and writing exercises to groom upcoming writers and published some of them. They have also promoted some established writers. Honorary members of the RBC include Prof. Wole Soyinka and Rev. Jesse Jackson.

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From 2008, RBC has run the annual Garden City Literary Festival (now the Port Harcourt Book Festival). They also managed the year-long Port Harcourt World Book Capital programme. In 2014, RBC held the Africa39 project in collaboration with the Hay Festival to celebrate 39 of the most promising writers under the age of 40 with the potential and talent to define trends in the development of literature from Africa and the African diaspora. The writers’ names were announced at the London Bookfair.

Over the years, RBC has worked with many top partners including the Rotary Club, the British Council, Alliance Francaise, SHELL, TOTAL, British Airways, among others. They also have a number of publications which include:

* Nigerian Literature – A Coat of Many Colours – an anthology of 50 Nigerian writers with a foreword by President Goodluck Jonathan,

* African Literature – A Coat of Many Colours – an anthology of 50 African writers with forward by Chief Emeka Anyaoku,

* 100 years around Nigeria – a compilation of stories on Nigeria’s culture by children, and

* Songhai 12 – an anthology of writing by upcoming writers.

For more information on The Rainbow Book Club, visit www.rainbowbookclub.org