Mary Reid

When I was on holiday in Jamaica last year I visited some of the schools in their Kingston which are linked to schools in our Kingston - this was a project of mine supported by the British Council in Jamaica and Kingston Council over here.

I was struck by how the teachers were having to struggle with extremely limited resources, and they particularly regretted the shortage of reading books.

When I got home I emailed my publisher to find out what they published for the Caribbean market, and I also contacted their agent in Jamaica, George Davis. As it happened George was coming over to London for a book fair, so we met up, together with the International Sales Manager from Heinemann.

It seems that Heinemann have developed a brilliant marketing scheme which gets books to schools that can't afford them and allows them to continue to publish books specifically for the Caribbean.

They encourage local major businesses to sponsor books for schools - from which the businesses gain considerable good publicity. It has not been unknown for them to be publicly thanked by the relevant Prime Minister for their generosity to the schools (in lieu, of course, of a properly funded education system, which, to be fair, is not easy to achieve in a developing economy).

So it's wins all round for schools, publisher and sponsors.

Under the Ginn imprint, Heinemann had produced a series of reading books for grades 1 to 5, all on the theme of cricket, which is hugely popular in Jamaica. It's neatly called 'Get Caught Reading'.

So I put this idea to my contacts in Jamaica - and this is where is gets even more complicated. The US International Development arm is supporting a project called Expanding Educational Horizons (EEH), which is aimed at improving education in Jamaica. Apparently 14% of women and 26% of men are illiterate, and boys' underachievement in schools is a major worry.  EEH is working with 70 primary schools in the most deprived areas, and with half a dozen projects that work with young people at risk. They set about finding a sponsor for the books.

Another chance link, through the British High Commission, revealed that the German Embassy had some funding which would be suitable for this project.

So as a direct result of my initial enquiry, 1500 new books have now been placed through EEH in some of the most disadvantaged schools, mainly in Kingston Jamaica. These include all the schools over there that are linked with our schools.

And here is a photo taken last week at the Ministry of Education with some samples of the books.

From left: Dr Jean Beaumont (Expanding Educational Horizons), George Davis (publisher's representative), me, Dr Rebecca Tortello (Ministry of Education)

You know, I've always said that a key function as councillors is to network people together - but I had never imagined that I would be linking schools in the two Kingstons with an international publisher and with British, German and American projects in Jamaica.