More Than A Literary Festival

The Read with Me campaign

On Sunday 12 November, the Bocas Lit Fest launched the Caribbean edition of CODE’s Read with Me campaign — a reading promotion campaign designed to promote the love and habit of reading by providing encouragement and inspiration. The campaign features “Reading Champions” from Africa, the Caribbean and Canada. A reading champion is anyone interested in promoting reading for pleasure, including young readers, celebrities, writers, teachers, librarians, students, civil servants, even entire organisations can be reading champions.

CODE, a Canada-based international development agency, is the founder and sponsor of the Burt Award for Caribbean Young Adult Literature, administered by the Bocas Lit Fest. This award recognises excellence in young adult literature by Caribbean authors and aims to get engaging, culturally-relevant books in the hands of young people.

We’re using social media to spread the word and to feature our reading champions. So who better than popular Trinidadian social media personality Ro’dey to kick off the social media campaign? Ro’dey was the host of our Read with Me launch event, a dual event that also launched the national spoken word intercol, and shared his own reading story, from once-reluctant reader to a YouTube and radio star who reads (and writes) scripts on a daily basis. Look out for Ro’dey’s #readwithme video testimonial soon!

Ro’dey the Entertainer. Gary Jordan Photography

We want everyone to be a reading champion! Here’s how to promote the love of reading through your social media network:

  • Tag us @bocaslitfest and @CODEBurtAwards #ReadWithMe when posting to your personal Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts.
  • Become friends and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. We will, in turn, follow you and re-post your messages and photos on our social media accounts.

Level A – Take a photo holding a book and tag your post @CODEBurtAwards and @Bocaslitfest with #ReadWithMe. We’ll repost and share your content.

Level B – Do the same as Level A, AND write a few sentences explaining why you are a reader and why reading is important to you.

Level C – Create a short video (using a phone or a camera). You can use these questions to guide the content of your video – or make up your own questions.

  • Why are you a reader?
  • Why is reading important to you?
  • What book do you want people to “Read with You”?
  • What is your favorite book and why?
  • Why do you read for pleasure?
  • Where do you find good books to read?

CODE and Bocas Lit Fest will share on our facebook page, twitter, youtube and Instagram. Ro’dey will also share your post on his pages — like he did with the winner of our instagram competition at the Read with Me launch event! Youth who share Read with Me stories on social media can win the chance to meet Ro’dey in person when he picks his favourite #readwithme story in March 2018.

Read more about the CODE’s Burt Award and Read with Me campaign here.

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