Help children cultivate reading culture, stakeholders tasked

Concerned by the registered dwindling reading culture among the younger generation, Fidelity Bank Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Nnamdi Okonkwo, has charged stakeholders to lend their support to reviving reading culture in the country.

Okonkwo spoke recently at a gathering powered by Fanfa Oil Limited, to mark the World Book Day (WBD), where he read a literature book to the delight of over 300 pupils drawn from schools Lagos State.

“These days that kids spend a lot of time on the Internet, wherever you find materials- whether you’re reading it electronically or you’re reading books, we should encourage and support our kids to read books, because that is the way you can broaden their minds, given that classroom education is never equate. You need to read and expand what you already know.

“Today is to promote literacy and knowledge. If you don’t read you will remain ignorant. Even in after you graduate from whatever school you go to, if you stop reading, you start dying because you keep getting more and more ignorant. So, teaching the kids to read from this early age, takes us back to how it used to be,” Okonkwo said.

While he urged corporate organizations, parents, and others to contribute their quotas to the cause, he stressed the need for the government to play the lead role since according to him, the corporates can only come in with their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives education.

Okonkwo said at Fidelity Bank, its CSR is hinged on education, environment, health and social welfare. “We have a programme called ‘Fidelity Helping Hand’ where we encourage our staff to identify laudable projects in their various regions and the staff make voluntary contribution. Whatever they contribute, the Bank matches it up and we keep renovating schools, all across the country. We have donated books, build or repair schools. So, our CSR is actually strong in education,” he explained. to improve