10 Questions for Bronwyn Sheehan (Founder – Pyjama Foundation)
Saturday, 28 February 2009 at 2:33 pm
Bronwyn Sheehan is the founder and CEO of the Pyjama Foundation and the 2009 Queenslander of the Year.
What is the Pyjama Foundation?
The Pyjama Foundation is a not-for-profit organization founded in 2004 with the vision of transforming vulnerable children’s lives through the immersion of literacy.
What prompted you to create the Pyjama Foundation?
Having 3 children of my own, I experienced first hand the benefits of reading books aloud to my children since they were babies. When they went to school for the first time they fell into learning very easily due to their early literacy experience. Through my children’s friends I had the pleasure of meeting a foster carer and I was able to see first hand, what a wonderful commitment they have to children in the care system. I believe they are the unsung hero’s of our community and so I formed The Pyjama Foundation to assist these amazing people who open their hearts and homes to our communities’ most vulnerable children.
What is the goal of the Pyjama Foundation?
To read every child in foster care 1000 books. There are currently 31,000 kids in care in Australia. This is only 31,000,000 books. Research supports the single most beneficial way of improving a child’s literacy level is to read books aloud to them. Our vision is equal opportunities, knowledge and empowerment for all children. I believe that if children have self confidence in their own academic abilities then they are naturally self empowered.
What type of people become Pyjama Angels?
The common theme through my volunteers is that they all love books themselves and they want to share this love of literature with kids who need it the most. The volunteers are between 18 and 76 years, mostly well educated and professionals. i.e. school teachers, speech specialists, doctors, nurses, lawyers, personal assistants, want-to-be Grandmas. The majority of our volunteers are females, but we have some very fantastic males. The best person to read books aloud to a young boy is a male.
What do the Pyjama Angels do on their visits with the children?
The Pyjama Angels promote a love of learning. They read books aloud to them or listen to the children read. Our visits are fun and so the PAs keep it light and engaging. They help with homework and play lots of educationally focused games. i.e. word bingo, puzzles, Uno (we are playing record numbers of Uno). Some angels sing, play music, cook or kick a ball outside. Two very strong messages we are sending the children are that they are special and that society values them.
How do foster children respond to their visits?
The children love being involved in our program. They adore their special person visiting them once a week. The kids are often waiting on the footpath for their angel to visit, or counting down the sleeps until their Angel arrives. This visit makes the children feel special.
This year you are launching an online read-a-thon. Can you explain how this works?
Visit your school’s read-a-thon web page.
Join your school’s team – create your own read-a-thon web page.
Read 10 books and review them on your web page.
Email a link to your web page to your family and friends so they can sponsor you.
Submit your best book review for your chance to visit the set of The Shak at Channel Nine in Brisbane.
How can the read-a-thon benefit schools and individuals?
Benefits to schools
The school which raises the most money will be visited by author Nick Earls and Queensland’s Australian of the Year 2009, The Pyjama Foundation’s CEO & founder, Bronwyn Sheehan.
Weekly prize: Thanks to Macmillan Education, each week one school will receive a complete set of The Macmillan Encyclopedia of Junior Science. Schools will receive a cash incentive based on their fundraising endeavors. Benefits for individuals
The student who submits the most creative book review will have the opportunity to visit Channel Nine’s The Shak in studio. Each week we will be giving away book packs which are too fantastic to be described. We are offering some fantastic incentive prizes to encourage the active fund raisers, ie iPod shuffle.
What does the Foundation hope to do with the money raised?
This will be very valuable funding to help support existing structures. The money raised will help us screen, recruit and train further volunteers, or Pyjama Angels. Our Angels visit their allocated child in care to read books, help with homework and be a positive role model boosting self esteem. The more money we can raise, the more Pyjama Angels we can train and the closer we get to our goal of reading 31,000,000 books to the children in Australia who need it the most.
Where can people get more information about the Pyjama foundation Read-a-thon?
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