Non-profit/Corporate Partnership Benefiting Children and Families a Success
ISSA is pleased to share the great success of "Opening Magic Doors," an ongoing non-profit/corporate partnership with the IBM Global Work/Life Fund for the benefit of children and their families. Since January 2008, ISSA has provided IBM with more than 2000 early literacy activity kits for families of IBM employees in eight countries in collaboration with the IBM Global Work/Life Fund.
"Opening Magic Doors" is based on the shared belief that quality interactions in the early years are invaluable for providing a strong foundation for future development in life, and that access to quality care and education is a right for all children.
Wishing to support its employees and to give their families tools to promote early literacy, IBM contracted ISSA to create the "Opening Magic Doors" Activity Kits, to be delivered to IBM employees in Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Russia, Slovakia, South Africa, Spain, and UK. Each kit includes an activity book which provides parents and caregivers suggestions for many ways to support and extend children's development and learning in a fun way. The kits also include four age-appropriate children's books as a starting point for these activities.
Feedback from parents who have used the kits with their children has been overwhelmingly positive. Parents cite the high quality of the activities and their children's enjoyment of the stories in the included books as reasons for using the kits again and again. With the success of the first round of kits, IBM is already discussing printing the kits in Dutch, Hungarian, and Polish for delivery in several more countries where IBM works.
"This partnership has proven that employers and educators can cooperate successfully to help parents instill a joy of reading and lifelong learning skills in their children," said Liana Ghent, ISSA's Executive Director. "We are delighted by parents' warm reception of "Opening Magic Doors" and we are building on the strengths of this partnership to create new activity kits and learning materials." Ms. Ghent indicated that ISSA is open to additional partnerships with corporations or organizations. All profits from the sale of the activity kits are reinvested into programs working towards ISSA's mission and in creating similar materials for at-risk children and low-literacy families.
The IBM Global Work/Life Fund was developed to improve the quality and increase the supply of dependent care in communities where IBM employees live and work. Through this fund, IBM has committed more than $270 million to dependent care programs and services around the world, and is frequently recognized for its commitment to helping employees manage issues of work and life. For more information on these initiatives go to http://www.ibm.com/ibm/responsibility/s4_4.shtml.
"Opening Magic Doors" is part of ISSA's Reading Corner - an initiative which joins the efforts authors and illustrators in the countries where ISSA is active to create high quality children's literature in a multitude of languages through the publication of developmentally appropriate, contemporary stories. To learn more about the activity kits, please visit www.issa.nl.
For more information, please contact Liana Ghent at lghent@issa.nl.
