Historic First for MP's Charity

Tuesday, 02, Feb 2010 10:07

For the first time ever, the Speaker of the House of Commons has invited an MP to nominate a charity to benefit from a reception in the historic surroundings of the Speaker's lodgings. That lucky MP was High Peak's Tom Levitt, who organised a reception for the charity of which he is patron, READ International.

READ operates in British universities where students collect surplus secondary school books from their neighbourhood. Each summer a team of student volunteers takes the books to Tanzania and embeds them in the schools there. Last summer, as Tom saw for himself, some 60 students delivered a quarter of a million books to Tanzania in this way. This year they will extend their work to Uganda, for the first time.

READ could not do its work without generous support from private companies such as British Airways, DHL, Big Yellow Self Storage and Staples. This year they hope to expand to include book collections organised through a major supermarket chain.

The 'thank you' reception was attended by a hundred people: student volunteers, supportive businesses, MPs and READ's staff and trustees. The Tanzanian High Commissioner, Mrs Mwanaidi Sinare Maajar, was also present. Mr Speaker, John Bercow MP, said how impressed he was with the organisation's work and the enthusiasm of its young supporters. Tom Levitt told the gathering that he was proud to be associated with an organisation which worked well on so many fronts, not least the ground breaking way in which private companies were involved in the charity's work.

Mr Levitt was invited to become patron of READ International in 2007, the year in which it was the Charity Times New Charity of the Year. In 2009 it was short listed as one of The Guardian's Charities of the Year. The inaugural reception was the first of a number to be offered by the Speaker to a charity nominated by an MP during 2010.