Chapter One is looking for new and existing partners to support teams of corporate volunteers to give 1:1 online reading support to Manchester children. This is an area of the country where 42% of children are in poverty, according to the End Child Poverty Coalition. The city has the highest levels of child poverty in the North West, at 42 percent. That equates to 12 children in a classroom of 30. Manchester also has the ninth highest rate of child poverty for all local authorities across the UK.

We are excited to be launching 13 classrooms (130 children) in three primary schools in central Manchester and Rochdale in September, with more in the pipeline, as we continue the expansion of our online reading volunteers programme into areas of high social deprivation. Our consortium of existing corporate partners - Cisco/Virgin Media O2, Clyde & Co, CMS, GRAHAM, KPMG, and Marsh - have between them generously committed a further 100 volunteers to be matched with children in these schools.

Claire Le Masurier, Corporate Responsibility Senior Manager for KPMG, said: "Literacy is one of the building blocks of social mobility and as a longstanding supporter of Chapter One, KPMG is delighted to be part of the expansion to Greater Manchester, working collaboratively with schools to improve the skills of local young people."

Chapter One executive director, Emma Bell, said, "We are very excited that a consortium of our long-standing partners are enabling Chapter One's expansion into Manchester and transforming more children's futures with one-to-one reading support at the time they need it most. There is great demand for our online reading volunteers from schools in the area and we encourage businesses to step forward and join our programme which delivers long-term, measurable impact."

Get involved!

If your company could provide a team of Chapter One online reading volunteers to support Manchester children from challenging backgrounds to become confident young readers, please be in touch! Contact our Business Development Manager, Sarah Taylor, to find out more.