Recycled books give gift of education

Gemma Karstens-Smith?the
Martlet – u of victoria
VICTORIA (CUP) – Last month, University of Victoria (UVic) students who found their textbooks weren’t being accepted by the campus bookstore’s buy-back program were able to get some good karma instead of cash.
When students came in with textbooks that were no longer in demand, the bookstore encouraged them to donate the books. The donated books will be sold to Better World Books, which then sells and distributes books to fund literacy initiatives worldwide.
From there, the university will donate the money from the sale of those books to Grace Educational Trust, which provides preschool education and after-school tutoring to children in a slum area in Goa, India.
Neelima Pratap co-founded Grace Educational Trust about four years ago, educating 15 kids in a rented room that had no running water, toilet facility or air ventilation.
Pratap, who also works for the UVic bookstore, says people may not realize how privileged they are. When they see people who are living without so many things that we consider to be basic and essential that changes.
“One of the things that I was drawn to was coming face-to-face with what it would mean to actually not have an education, which I didn’t get. To me, being educated or not being educated, those are ideas, those were concepts,” she said.
“But when I actually stepped into the country about 10 years ago, I came face-to-face with what it might really be like to never have been in school. It was something that I couldn’t fathom.”
According to UVic bookstore’s textbook manager, Penny Draper, approximately 2,000 books have been donated since April 2010, which will translate into about $1,000 for the Grace Educational Fund.
Both Draper and Pratap are excited for  the partnership between the UVic bookstore and the Grace Educational Fund to grow in the future.
“The bookstore’s goal for our donation dollars is to focus on education and literacy,” said Draper. “To be able to work with a worthy group that has a UVic connection is a privilege.”