THE team behind the Penarth Book Festival took time out of their busy schedule to present a donation to the Penarth and District Lesotho Trust (PADLT).

Lesotho is a mountainous African country roughly the size of Wales. Over the past 10 years, there have been a number of group visits from Penarth to Lesotho.

The impact of these visits has been described as ‘life changing’ by both the young people of Penarth and the children and families in Lesotho.

A recent project of PADLT has been to build a library in the grounds of TY Junior Academy, an independent non-funded school. Their goal now is to stock the library with books and make it available for both the school and the local community.

Lesley Cox, Chair of PADLT, said: “We are delighted to have the support of the Penarth Book Festival, their donation will enable us to buy much needed reading books for the library. We have seen firsthand the impact having access to books can make to the education of the children. PADLT is keen to give the children in TY Lesotho some of the benefits that children in the UK enjoy, and thanks to The Penarth Book Festival we can continue to do so.”

Penarth Book Festival committee member Fay Blakeley added: “We as an organisation are keen to promote and support literacy amongst children and families wherever they may be, and this donation will make a tangible difference to the people of Lesotho.”

Closer to home, the Festival has also recently made a donation to The National Literacy Trust ‘Young Readers Programme’, specifically supporting a project running at a Swansea primary school. The project helps nurture a culture of reading for pleasure, supplying the children with books, which for many of them will be the first books they’ve owned.

Fay Blakeley added: “The Festival team would like to thank everyone involved in the 2013 Festival, especially the writers and volunteers, whose support made the both the Festival and these donations possible. The next Penarth Book Festival is planned for October 2014.”