The Literacy Hubs provide unique, creative and adventurous learning environments that inspire young people, from the least advantaged communities, to improve their literacy skills and fall in love with reading and writing.

Portsmouth has some of the lowest literacy levels in the UK. Nearly a quarter of children in the city live in poverty, and children from low-income backgrounds are twice as likely to fall below expected levels of reading and writing by age 11, affecting their future prospects, health and wellbeing.

Set up by Becca Dean MBE, the Literacy Hubs has suffered due to rising costs that are impacting both schools and funders. The charity is in need of vital funds so that it can continue its valuable mission.

The charity hopes to raise over £15,000 on its CrowdFunder page which will ensure it can support more children to improve their literacy.

Any funds raised above the target will be invested to ensure that more children can benefit from this unique offer on the South Coast.

Did you know? 

• Nearly a quarter of all children in Portsmouth are currently living in poverty
• In The Charles Dickens ward 44.2% of children live in poverty
• Children living in poverty tend to start school with vocabularies up to 19 months behind their better-off peers and are twice as likely to leave secondary school without good GCSEs in English and maths.
• 1 in 3 children, from lower socio-economic backgrounds, leave primary school without reaching expected levels of reading.

The Literacy Hubs helps communities across Portsmouth gain the literacy skills they need to thrive. At our hubs we offer unique, creative and adventurous learning environments which inspire young people from the least advantaged communities, across Portsmouth, to improve their literacy skills and fall in love with reading and writing.

We don’t charge families for our services. We are a registered charity that relies on generous individuals, communities and businesses who donate. These donations allow us to continue to support children to thrive at school and beyond. 

As a small charity every donation counts!  Your support is central to our programme, and ensures we can work with as many young people as possible to address educational inequality and ensure that the children we support have the skills they need to succeed. 

- £50 pays for a week of healthy snacks and fruit for the 120 hungry pirates and sailors attending our sessions

- £100 pays for ten pupils' resource packs (including pens, notebooks and their all important navigators toolkit) 

- £200 pays for a term of funding for one pupil 

- £600 pays for one year of funding for one pupil

You can find out more about our work by visiting www.theliteracyhubs.co.uk