The Tribune

By RIEL MAJOR

A FREE literacy programme for the children of murder victims has graduated its first group of 10 students.

Khandi Gibson, founder, and president of the local advocacy group Families of All Murder Victims (FOAM), awarded 10 children certificates for completing the Reading Kiosk group last Sunday.

Ms Gibson said: “The Reading Kiosk is a reading group for children from low-end communities and we realized their parents would have been clients of ours. They would come here every month for assistance so we saw they needed help with reading so we formed the reading club.

“We opened this group for murder victim kids or kids whose parents may have or are incarcerated. It started from November 11, 2018, and ended February 28, 2019, and the students were given certificates at the ceremony we had on Sunday, March 3rd.

“They are in school but they are children who had a challenge reading. Some came in reading at a grade 1 to 2 level, now some of them are reading past a grade 5 level. They are reading at a much better rate now.”

Ms Gibson said the next session of the Reading Kiosk will start again in April.

She added: “People say you need money for everything but once God gives you a vision and you have faith it’s going to work out. This reading kiosk started without a dollar.

“(Classes are) on Sundays from 3.30pm to 4.30pm for children from the age of 5 to 16 at Christ Community Church."

Ms Gibson is encouraging interested parents to call and enroll their children by contacting 603-4141 or 424-8953.