“It’s heart-breaking that 280 million people in Africa cannot read. That’s why we’re partnering with our customers and transforming simple pizza boxes into Red Reading Boxes in order to put books and learning aids into the hands of those who need them most,” said Pizza Hut Africa, general manager Ewan Davenport ahead of his visit to Harare tomorrow.
Davenport will be at Pizza Hut Sam Levy’s Village where he will be launching ‘The African Literacy Project’ which seeks to raise awareness for literacy-related issues and engage consumers to help make a difference.
This is in line with the brand’s global initiative, The Literacy Project established in 2016. In its first year, the global campaign impacted 15.9 million people and distributed more than 275,000 books and educational resources to communities in the USA, Brazil, Canada, Costa Rica, and South Africa.
Continued Davenport: “Literacy and reading can be real bridges to opportunity. We’re focused on using our growing restaurant footprint in Africa to make a difference in the communities we serve.”
Davenport and his team will take Red Reading Boxes to 12 countries in 14 cities in 22 days, starting in Cape Town, South Africa and travelling to Accra, Ghana on the East Coast, across to Djibouti on the West Coast before making a stop in Harare and then completing the journey in Durban, South Africa.
This campaign also bridges the cultural and linguistic divide by collecting stories at every stop that will ultimately go into a special Africa Edition of the Red Reading Box to be distributed across Africa on World Literacy Day.
As they travel, Pizza Hut franchisee partners will launch a customer donation drive in each country to raise funds which will be combined with Pizza Hut contributions to roll out as many boxes as possible.
