I had the privilege of talking to the founders and ambassadors of Textbooks for Change, a group that started at Western in 2013.
How long has it been at Western?
In 2013, I started Textbooks for Change while I was at Western as part of the Shinerama fundraising campaign with the Orientation program. By collecting books and reselling to younger students, we were able to raise $500 for Shinerama that year. I was pretty excited about the potential and began putting dropboxes in places like the libraries (shout-out to King’s Library for being our first ever location!). After graduation I travelled to Kigali, Rwanda to teach at the School of Finance and Banking. After my return I came back to London and changed the model into what it is today. In January 2014, we officially launched T4C and I’ve been running it full-time ever since. Western has been our biggest contributor to this day!
Tell us more about your organization.
Textbooks for Change is a social enterprise that provides affordable and accessible educational material to students both locally and across the globe. We are a top 10% ranked B Corp worldwide and believe that business should be used as a force for good. Since turning this into a full-time project, we’ve expanded to over 30 campuses in Ontario and are in the process of scaling across North America. We’ve also donated over 135,000 textbooks to partner campus libraries in East Africa and saved over 3,000 trees by reusing and recycling textbooks!
What does your group do?
We collect used post-secondary textbooks on campuses and in the community to create impact in a variety of ways. 50% of the textbooks collected are donated to campus libraries in East Africa, where they are accessible to staff and students in libraries. 20% are resold back to students in North America at affordable prices online, with proceeds supporting local causes like Shinerama or Get REAL. 30% of textbooks that are old or out dated are recycled efficiently.
How can students get involved?
There are lots of ways students can get involved with T4C, and I encourage you to check out our website to find out more here.
- Donate textbooks that you no longer need
- Run a textbook drive with your club, team, or class to help raise funds for a cause while supporting education around the globe. We’ve worked with tons of student groups at Western to do this.
- Connect with our ambassador team on campus to see where they may need help
- Spread the word and learn more about our impact!
What is the main goal of the group?
Our ultimate vision is to make access to education a right, not a privilege. When I was travelling and teaching in East Africa, I saw first-hand how passionate and intelligent students needed to share photocopied, out-of-date material to learn. This has been our team’s driving force and inspires every decision we make.
Education acts as a gateway for millions of young people around the world. It provides young people with the skills necessary to attain personal success and impact their community. Socioeconomic class should not dictate educational opportunities. Educated youth have the ability to tackle issues surrounding gender equality, literacy rates and youth employment in order to reduce poverty and foster peaceful societies.
What is one thing you wish more students knew about the group?
We’ve changed and grown as a team since I launched this. One of the biggest areas of improvement our team has made is our impact in East Africa, where we seek to move from simply making a donation to creating an educational partnership. We have official partnerships with schools like Moi University in Kenya and have begun tracking our donated textbooks in their libraries to see the long-term impact this creates. It is tough to tie how a textbook connects to opening opportunities for students in Kenya, but that’s something we are working very hard towards. We have a full-time team member who spends months at a time establishing partnerships on the ground, and we have started a Campus Ambassador Program in Kenya to help promote the availability of textbooks on campus.
Anything else you wish to add?
We are launching a new initiative called Talks for Change at Western in March, where we will be bringing members of the social enterprise and social innovation community together to share their stories. We hope to see many people out there!
I also sat down with two Western ambassadors, Connor Barr and Corrine Tansowny, and this is what they had to say about working with the organization!
How long have you been working with T4C?
Connor: Formally, since September, in this role, but through the Sophing program, we’ve been involved for a few years. T4C is the big April soph initiative, and all the sophs rally together to see who can raise the most books, and all the money that they raise go towards Shinearama. T4C grew to different campuses using the campus ambassador model—they found students at different universities who liked the idea of it, and those students brought it to their campuses. They liked the idea of students owning the campaign and creating campaigns for their campuses. Right now, we have nine people on our team.
How do you keep the program throughout the year?
Connor: We do different drives with different groups throughout the year, and we try to do one partnership each month, but the soph community takes any leftover books at the end of the year. We just like to look at how we can engage the community and focus on education, which is the basis behind everything that T4C does.
Corrine: We hold drives throughout the year, but something new we’re starting this year is the “Talks for Change” initiative. Because T4C was originally started by Chris Jansen while he was in university and he was an entrepreneur while he was a student, we wanted to play off that theme, with Talks for Change. We’re going to invite a bunch of current Western students and alumni to talk at Western, and the idea is to inspire people to take action now, that you don’t have to wait until you’re graduated and have work experience to start a business that can have a huge impact on the world. The event will be on March 20th in the McKellar Room.
What do you enjoy most about working with T4C?
Corinne: I met Chris two years ago when he came and spoke at Western, and I found his story really inspiring, and it’s something I can easily connect to, because he was in our shoes just a few years ago. I love the model, because I find it really simple, just donating textbooks, something everybody needs to get rid of, and nobody ever has a means to do that, we’re all kind of lazy and we just let them pile up. And it’s fulfilling that need really simply for students, and it’s great to share the gift of education with people who are living in East Africa and going to university there, and also making sure that textbooks are recycled in a way that’s sustainable, and fundraising for other charities through Shinerama. It’s fantastic all around.
Shreya Raj, past Head Campus Ambassador at Fanshawe, also had this to say about the organization:
I have been working with T4C for over a year now and I have not only witnessed personal growth but also that of the entire organization. Starting as a Head Campus Ambassador at Fanshawe, I gained leadership skills. Whilst in that position, I managed a team of volunteers, conducted book collection drives and promoted the organization’s work. At Western now, I am working as a volunteer alongside an amazing group of thriving teammates who share the same passion for the community.
The three things that really strike about the organization is firstly, the team itself. It’s a very different energy that every T4C member brings in and it’s certainly that enthusiasm towards giving kids the equal access to books and education, that makes it one of a kind. Second would definitely be the opportunity to interact. As an international student, it’s a struggle to settle in a new country, make friends and build a professional network. T4C has helped me throughout and given me some true friends for life. Lastly, T4C belongs to the world’s top 10% of the best B-Corp’s existing, which makes me so proud to be a part of it.