The Kittiwake Trust – a charity that gives free books to society’s most marginalised groups – has been selected by The London Book Fair as its Charity of the Year for 2018.
Founded in 2009, The Kittiwake Trust donates books and other items to not-for-profit organisations and schools. In 2017, the Trust donated 14,222 books, including 6,000 books to prisons, custody suites, and groups supporting former prisoners.
Focussing on putting books in the hands of those that need them most, while preventing books from going to waste, in 2015 the Trust launched its multi-lingual library which now holds over 7,000 books in more than 81 languages.
As The London Book Fair’s Charity of the Year, The Kittiwake Trust will exhibit at the Fair in April and receive extensive marketing support before and during the event. LBF will also provide Kittiwake with year-long promotion on its website, and online opportunities for fundraising.
The Kittiwake Trust will host a seminar on books in prison at The London Book Fair on Tuesday 10th April.
Jacks Thomas, Director at the London Book Fair, commented: The work of the Kittiwake Trust is truly inspiring, and we look forward to giving them a platform at LBF that will help them build awareness of the invaluable work they are doing to supply books to those who need them most.
For further information, and to request interviews, please contact:
Edwina Boyd-Gibbins
Midas Public Relations
0207 361 7860
edwina.boyd-gibbins@midaspr.co.uk
ABOUT THE KITTIWAKE TRUST
The Kittiwake Trust became a charity in 2016 after having run as a constituted community organisation for six years.
The Trust runs two projects: Borderline Books (the longest-running project which originated in the Netherlands in 2001) and the Kittiwake Trust Multilingual Library in Newcastle which opened in 2015.
Apart from one part-time office worker, these projects are entirely volunteer-run. The library benefits from the wide diversity of students and others living in Newcastle who are able to catalogue the books in all 81 languages while having a chance to work on their English at the same time.
Borderline Books has always aimed to give free books to the most marginalised groups, working via other organisations, and does not give books to the general public. In the past couple of years we have begun giving books to police custody suites, prisons, individual prisoners, probation and groups supporting ex-prisoners. Of the 14,222 books we donated last year almost 6000 went to this group.
In late 2016, founder Amina Marix Evans was offered an MBE. She turned it down for a couple of reasons – the second of which was that she felt it was more important to honour the charity than the individual. Being chosen as Charity of the Year by the London Book Fair has certainly filled the bill.