The University of Portsmouth has been helping children from asylum-seeking families to enjoy books and reading.

BA (Hons) Illustration staff and students developed a reading and drawing project to invite families from the Portsmouth City of Sanctuary (PCoS) asylum seeker community into the University Library.

Working with Anita David from PCoS, children and their families with little access to books and who did not have English as a first language, were able to enjoy books from the Library’s Near and Far World Book (NFWB) collection, which are authored from across the world and translated into English.

The families were linked up with students who read to and listened to them reading.  The students also mentored older family members to take on the responsibility to read to, with and listen to younger children, while also developing their own language skills. Further activities included drawing the characters from the stories with the children and playing games based on the books.