Christmas for Arohata Prison Book Club!

The Arohata Prison Book Club has met every month since May 2015 with a simple aim - to bring women together to discuss, debate and chat about a good book (or a not-so-good-book!) This Christmas we'd love it if you could get involved by donating money for us to buy books.

THE CHRISTMAS FUNDRAISER

Next year we'll need to buy 72 books so this Christmas we're asking for your help to raise enough money for the book club to continue into 2019. What we're suggesting is simple: you pay for a book (or more if you like) on behalf of someone else as their Christmas present. We'll send you a gift certificate/book mark with the details of your purchase so they have something to unwrap on christmas morning. Maybe you don't want to get your sister another pair of earrings, you've already bought your Dad an Oxfam goat, or you just like the sound of the Arohata Prison Book Club. Whatever the reason, buying a book for a woman in the book club on behalf of someone you love is a great way to support women in prison this Christmas.

You can donate any amount but we've put below a few options so you know how many books you're buying!

One book for a woman in book club: $25

Three books for a woman in book club: $75

Six books for a woman in book clus: $150

Books for all of 2019 for a woman in book club!: $300

If you are buying as a Christmas gift, once you've donated email us at arohatabookclub@gmail.com with the name of the person you've bought for, the number of books you bought and your address. We'll send you a gift certificate for you to wrap up and put under a tree!

HOW THE BOOK CLUB WORKS

Women in prison like to read just as much as everyone else. As well as being a constructive way to pass the time, participating in a book club can also be an opportunity for women to be intellectually stimulated and challenged, to build confidence in themselves and their ideas and to experience different worlds. Like any other book club, each month we meet to discuss a book, then decide together what the book for the next month will be. After the discussion each woman can either keep her book, donate it to the prison library, share it with other women in the prison or send it to someone on the outside!

There are six women in the book club (plus two of us) at any one time. In the last three and a half years around 50 women have been part of the book club. Our Book Club members have a variety of reading tastes and we have read everything from The Book Thief to Crystal Reign, The Help to The Rosie Project, The Girl on the Train to The Choice, Trust: A True Story of Women in Gangs to Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine.

Please note, the Arohata Book Club is not a registered charity. It is run on a voluntary basis and we are looking to apply for registration this year.

You can hear more about the book club here:

https://soundcloud.com/b-side-broadcasts/arohata-prison-book-club-part-1

https://player.fm/series/b-side-stories/arohata-prison-book-club-part-2