WATCH: These teens are helping other teens build a solid literary foundation. Susan Hay reports.
TORONTO- Books With No Bounds is an organization started by teens, Julia and Emma Mogus. It provides Aboriginal children and teens living in remote communities, with donated books.
Julia and Emma have always had a love for reading. They realized that not all children have been given the same opportunities when it comes to books and education, and were driven to make a difference.
“It’s an organization my sister and I started in June of 2012,” said Julia, co-founder of Books With No Bounds. “We sent books up to First Nations communities in Nishnawbe Aski Nation. We’ve also sent books to communities as far away as Uganda, Ghana and Africa, India as well as the Philippines.”
They work out of their family basement, organizing, packing and finally sending appropriate books to children and teens in Northern Ontario.
“What Emma and Julia are doing is incredible,” said Nick Bertrand, Aboriginal Consultant at the Halton District School Board. “Helping our students to understand that we do have inequities that exist on First Nations communities. And by bringing books to communities in the North, they’re truly meeting a need that is definitely prevalent.”
Together, the girls have traveled to several reserves, encouraging First Nation youth to read and reach for the stars.
“That quote that says, “It takes a village to raise a leader,” said Julia. “But it really takes a community to raise a reader.”
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