A FREE service is giving local kids better access to books, as the literacy and language skills of Bendigo children are shown to be below the state average.
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Children who visit the Bendigo and District Aboriginal Co-operative’s Forest Street medical centre will be able to read and borrow from 350 books in the new Book Box library.
Books can also be swapped or donated.
The books were donated by Goldfields Libraries users in December during the organisation’s Give New Worlds initiative, which collects books for areas with poor literacy outcomes for children.
Indicators of language and literacy levels in young children aged up to five years old in Bendigo have suggested they are lower than the Victorian average.
In some areas, especially those with greater socioeconomic disadvantage, these levels are significantly below the state and even Greater Bendigo averages.
Bendigo Health language and literacy program worker Sandra Harvey said low literacy and language skill levels in young children could have profound negative impacts on their lives, affecting future education, health, social and employment outcomes.
“Early achievement of literacy and language skills can be improved with access to books and rich, nurturing language opportunities for babies and toddlers prior to starting school,” Ms Harvey said.
The library has been up and running for about two months, and is open to any child who is interested.
“BDAC is really pleased with the way the box library is being accessed, and it’s a really great initiative,” BDAC corporate services general manager Dallas Widdicombe said.
The Book Box is the third in Bendigo, with one at the Salvation Army on Mundy Street and another at Jenny’s Early Learning Centre.
More are in the works for the city.
The box was installed at the BDAC medical centre after Bendigo Health approached the organisation with the proposal.
The shelf housing the books was built by the Long Gully Men’s Shed and painted by children during NAIDOC Children’s Week.
The Book Box Library is an initiative of Communities for Children, a Department of Social Services-funded program focused on improving the health and wellbeing of young children through early intervention and prevention programs.
Improving reading and writing skills in Indigenous children is also a key target of the national Close the Gap campaign, which aims to halve the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous children’s literacy and numeracy skills by 2018.
