Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Donates Tons of Books to South African School

(September 10, 2009)

Founded a decade ago in Cape Town's densely populated and impoverished Khayelitsha Township, the Isikhokelo School - whose mission is to help transform South Africa by providing a holistic, quality education through collective leadership - serves 1,054 students with only 27 teachers. Insufficient funding also left the school with an ill-equipped science lab, no athletic field, and an empty library. Isikhokelo's management and staff have appealed to various agencies and organizations since the school's inception to secure enough money to deliver the twenty-first-century education its students deserve.

As part of its Corporate Social Responsibility initiative, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt answered Isikhokelo's call by delivering three shipments of children's and reference books, K-10 educational resources, and professional development materials. In addition to equipping teachers with the necessary resources to pursue their mission of education, the Company's 6,500-pound donation filled Isikhokelo's library, giving students their first-ever opportunity to read and share books outside the classroom.