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JWT Uses Recycled Stock Photo Books to Teach Kids to Read

April 4, 2010 on 3:35 am | In News Briefs, USA Program News | No Comments

JWT is the world’s best-known marketing communications brand. Headquartered in New York, JWT is a true global network, with more than 200 offices in over 90 countries employing nearly 10,000 marketing professionals. This spring their New York office has been working with GLP on an innovative idea called the “My First Book Project.” Here is a brief press release from PDNPulse (http://www.pdnpulse.com/2010/03/jwt-uses-recycled-stock-photo-books-to-teach-kids-to-read.html)…

Bulky old stock photography and illustration catalogues take up a lot of space, but it can feel like an awful waste to pitch the lavishly printed tomes into a recycling bin. A project by JWT has given old stock books new life as educational tools for youngsters learning to read.

The “My First Book Project” program was created by staffers in the advertising agency’s Cape Town, South Africa office as a tool to teach kids to read, and has since spread to other JWT offices, including the one in New York.

To convert the stock photography books into tools that help children learn to read, “authors” write simple, single-word descriptions of what’s depicted in the photographs—“Dog” or “Man” or “Nose” for instance—on each page.

JWT has partnered with The Global Literacy Project (GLP), a non-profit organization that collects and delivers donated books to areas of Africa, Asia and the Caribbean with low literacy rates. The program is right in line with the GLP motto: “Books for Brainfills, Not Landfills!”

Thus far more than 2,000 JWT employees worldwide have created books that have reached 70,000 children in three countries.

Getty and Corbis are also supporting the program through donations of outdated stock photo catalogues.

Others who wish to get involved can send inquires to:

The Global Literacy Project
P.O. Box 228
New Brunswick, NJ 08930