Leadway Launches ‘Pages To Places’ Initiative To Bolster Reading Culture Among Nigerian Children
Tunde Hassan Odukale, MD/CEO Leadway Assurance
To further exemplify its commitment to the promotion of literacy, bolstering reading culture, and improving quality education among children aged 6-12, Leadway Group has launched an innovative extra-curricular initiative campaign tagged “Pages to Places” in twelve (12) public schools across six states in Nigeria, namely, Lagos, Ogun, Abuja, Kaduna, Enugu, and Port Harcourt.
According to a statement by the Company, The “Pages to Places” initiative, targeted at children, is a book reading initiative across select public primary schools with a vision to steer the young generation towards expanding the reading culture, broadening their healthy imaginative abilities, believing in a better world and becoming better, more creative, and more promising individuals.
The initiative, which is under the group’s education-focused corporate social responsibility drive, ‘Leadway Goes to School’, has been designed to commemorate the 2023 Children’s Day celebration and is scheduled to run from Tuesday, May 30 to Wednesday, June 7, 2023.
Speaking on the initiative, the Group Chief Marketing Officer of Leadway Holdings, Mr. Olusakin Labeodan, cited that according to the World Culture Score Index, Nigeria has one of the world’s lowest reading cultures.
At the same time, he said available statistics from the National Commission for Mass Literacy, Adult and Non-Formal Education show that 38 percent of Nigerians are illiterate, with four out of every ten primary school children being illiterate.
“We believe in the transformative power of a book, it’s potential to improve the intellectual capacity of our young ones, and its capacity to shape the future into a promising horizon no matter one's social-economic background.
“With a little over 40% of Nigerians comprising young people under the age of 14, it has become imperative for organizations like ours to intervene and help build this generation into a pipeline of global talents and leaders. This is the philosophy that drives our organization. We are thrilled to be launching this initiative with hundreds of children who desperately need to improve their skills”, he stated.
Leadway Holdings, also known as Leadway, is a Nigerian non-banking financial services corporation headquartered in Lagos, Nigeria. The holding company owns and manages one of Nigeria’s largest insurance companies that provides education, commercial and personal property and casualty insurance, travel insurance, and life insurance.
