Supporting 'Books behind bars'
22 Jun 2011
Broadcast Australia and SBS recently supported a program designed to provide more books to Aboriginals in jail.
A recent report shows that Aboriginal youths in NSW are over 25 times more likely to be jailed than their non-indigenous peers. In a program designed to help counter this shocking statistic, the Library Services Section of the NSW Correctional Services is crying out for donations of books and educational resources.
To meet this demand, the NSW Aboriginal Land Council (ALC) has launched a 'Books Behind Bars' program. In conjunction with Broadcast Australia's and SBS's 'Year of Giving Back', the two organisations supported this initiative, and encouraged staff to donate any books they no longer wanted or needed.
The book-drive, which gathered nearly 800 books, successfully collected a range of both non-fiction and fiction—including children's books, dictionaries, textbooks, novels, and books on law, health, and trades. The ALC have been appreciative of this effort, as it puts them one step closer to their stated goal—"to see a lot more books, and a lot less Aboriginal people behind bars."
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