The books were handed over to City Libraries during a function at the Danie van Zyl Recreation Centre in Montclair on Friday, 31 January.

This generous donation comes after the City’s Library and Information Services Directorate launched its Million Books Donation Campaign in November, which aims to collect at least a million books in the next five years to bolster reading and literacy among Johannesburg’s children, particularly in disadvantaged communities.

Biblionef is an international non-governmental organisation that secures donations to donate to schools. New storybooks are donated free of charge to needy children via children’s organisations throughout the world.

Jean Williams, director of Biblionef South Africa, explained: “The vision of Biblionef is to create lifelong readers who are good citizens, who can read and think for themselves, resulting in a society where everyone is literate; has access to education and finds reading both a great pleasure and a necessity.”

“This campaign is part of the City’s Growth and Development Strategy (GDS) 2040, aimed at increasing literacy, skills and lifelong learning”, said Councillor. Chris Vondo: MMC for Community Development.

He also said: “We want to inculcate a culture of reading in every child in our city by introducing books to them at an early age.

Bolstered by the Biblionef donation, the City will continue mobilising its own employees, communities, the private sector, various organisations and book-lovers to donate books with a view increasing literacy in the city.

The City of Johannesburg is hopeful that it would collect a significant number of books for its Million Books Donation Campaign by Wednesday, 23 April, which is World Book Day. In the meantime, Councillor Vondo is urging members of the public and organisations to help give disadvantaged children an equal chance to succeed at school by depositing new or used children’s books in the orange containers placed at public libraries.