Looks like Audra's actually organizing a charity event for International Children's Book Day - and they need YOUR support!

Check it out:

(ok a tad long as i've copied the post in full, but i don't think i'm allowed to link to her blog *grumble*)


What’s the Scoop On Books?

Since most of the difficult bits pertaining to Project Director have been sorted out during CNY week and out of the way now (now the fun part of delegation! Whoopee.), I finally have the time to blog about my class event – The Scoop on Books! Reading Campaign.

It started off as a brief proposal for a one day event to cultivate healthy reading habits among Malaysia’s young and fund-raising for the development of Braille reading materials. I certainly did not expect my project to be selected amidst other campaigns proposed by other groups ie. SPCA charity drive, Batik Gala dinner, Petronas F1 campus tour..and so on.

How this idea came into being you may ask? I swear I had no idea what I wanted to do, so I browsed through NST’s lifestyle section and lo and behold – came across this feature article on Rebecca Duckett-Wilkinson, a local children’s book author, promoting her book Natu the Chichak. Bam! There was my event.. I wanted to promote her book!

So here I was, thinking ah heck, they’ll prolly not choose my event anyways but whaddya know, here I am a month later in full Project Director glory (what do I know about leadership?!).
After our thrice weekly meetings, the humble one-day event has now become a full-fledged campaign. Basically, this campaign is targeted at preschoolers from the age of 4-6 years, and consists of three parts –

i) Press Conference (24th February 2006)
ii) Kindergarten Celebrity Reading (10th March 2006)
iii) Sundae Party@galleriiizu (2nd April 2006)

There will we four celebrity readings held simultaneously on the 10th at four separate kindergartens. So far, the celebs who have been contacted are:

i) Ashraf Sinclair (Confirmed)
ii) Adibah Noor (Confirmed)
iii) Sharifah Amani & Aleya
iv) Cheryl Samad
v) Sazzy Falak (Emcee for Sundae Party..she looks so angry in the photo!)

We also have a patron – Datin Radziah Mohd. Daud, the President for the National Association for Early Childhood Care and Education Malaysia (NAECCEM) who has agreed to sponsor books as prizes. She has also agreed to brief our celebs as to the proper way of reading books to preschoolers (it’s an art you see), that will not only be fun, but able to develop their fine motor skills at the same time.

There will be a drawing competition themed “My Favourite Book Character” during the Kindergarten Celebrity Reading whereby two winners will be selected from each kindy, and their drawings will be printed onto cards and later sold at RM10.00 per booklet (consisting of eight cards). We will be targeting personal sales as well as bulk-sales to corporations.

The Scoop on Books! A Sundae Party

This event finale will be held at galleriiizu, a very nice contemporary art gallery in the heart of KL (opposite the KLCC Convention Centre). Why an art gallery? We’re branding our event as discovering the art of reading. I’m sure we’re all aware that anyone can read a book aloud, but not everyone can do it well. Same goes to teaching, anyone can teach, but not everyone can teach effectively. This event is targeted to middle-upper class parents who encourage and cultivate the finer art of reading – definitely an event every child should have the privilege of participating! (Oh I forgot to mention, each child should come in costume as favourite book character..joy!)

Rebecca Duckett-Wilkinson (my muse bwaha) has also agreed to conduct the final book-reading session at galleriiizu and also very graciously agreed to give 30% of all book-sales proceeds to our fundraising cause.

We will also be inviting a few blind + disabled children to join in on the fun, and there will be a brief Braille appreciation session, as well as a Braille recital by one of the students from MAB. There’s also a Creative Writing Recital by the other preschoolers. The day closes with a Sundae party whereby all preschoolers get rewarded with ice-cream..yum!

Anyway, so far things have been going pretty smooth flowing. We’re looking for monetary contributions though so if anyone is interested in helping out this event with a good cause (children + the blind..c’mon!) do let me know. We can arrange to have your logo/advertisement in our program book for the Sundae Party. Rest assured that our event will receive publicity (doh, it’s a PR counseling project!), we will be sending out press releases and invitations to the media, and with our line-up of celebs I’m sure there’ll be a good photo opportunity for it to get good coverage in papers. So yeah, contributions of ANY sort would be good :D

I’m so stoked that things are going well..yay!! I have to thank my team of 26 individuals..you guys are doing a great job, this project wouldn’t be as big as it is without each and everyone of you, and thanks for believing in me <3

If you're interested in attending and doing your bit, please let me know by commenting in the 'Man About Town' section, thanks! ;)