By Yemi Adebisi
As Port Harcourt plans to hand over the UNESCO World Book Capital City title to Incheon, South Korea by Thursday April 23, a total of 66,500 books have been donated to the libraries of the 100 schools in Nigeria.
Literary critics also affirmed that the project has influenced the totality of literary growth in the country.
As at the last count, part of its achievements was the setting up of 200 book clubs in 100 schools. Working with both public and private schools, the clubs cater to senior primary as well as Junior and Senior Secondary School students and have a total of 2,500 students as members.
At the primary level, the club members read a book a week, while those at the secondary level read a book a month. These books were carefully selected and range from timeless classics to African folk tales as well as contemporary literature.
The books that are read during the club meetings are donated to the school and on completion of a club meeting are kept in the school library which means the clubs can continue to run after the World Book capital year.
About 300 teachers and 100 volunteers were also trained to man the clubs.
Through the PHWBC programmes, 73 writers, which include both the aspiring and the established, have been celebrated and promoted on the national and international stage.
Many more writers have had their works show cased and introduced to a wider audience, through the publication of two books: Nigerian Literature; A Coat of Many Colours Volume I and II.
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