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Courtesy of Real Action
Real Action is a community-led educational charity which
provides specialist literacy and English language programmes for children and
adults resident predominantly in the Queen's Park, Harrow Road and Westbourne
wards of north Westminster, and in adjoining areas of north Kensington, Kensal
Green south Kilburn and Harlesden. Its founder, Mozart Estate resident Roger
Diamond, was concerned about the criminal activities - and illiteracy - of gangs
of young children on the estate. With co-founder Katie Ivens he set up Real
Action with a management committee of local parents in 1997. The organisation
became a registered charity the following year.
Real Action aims, with
each of its carefully sourced and purpose-designed programmes, to substantially
and speedily raise the literacy and language levels of its 'disadvantaged'
clientele of multiple origins and abilities. The programmes have been specially
devised to provide uniquely effective opportunities for educational success,
access to further training, education and employment, and an alternative to
dependency, disaffection and involvement in criminal activity.
THE
BUTTERFLY SATURDAY READING SCHOOL
Real Action's flagship project, the
Butterfly Saturday Reading School was set up, permanently, in 1999 for children
aged 5 -12. The aim is to enable as many local children as possible to enter
secondary school with age- appropriate reading levels, ensuring that they will
be equipped to participate in secondary education with prospects of fulfilling
careers and personal lives, instead of succumbing to disaffection and all the
consequences.
Real Action's work with local children at the Butterfly
Saturday Reading School has made an impact discernible in statistics published
by the DCSF. These indicate that over ten years since 1997 improvement in
literacy for 11- year olds in Queen's Park was almost twice that achieved by
children in Westminster as a whole. This has been attributed to the work of Real
Action.
Courtesy of Real Action