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His father's urgent words to him as a young boy growing up in rural Ukraine, that reading was "the tool you need to achieve something in life", spurred Kostyantin Zhevago into action.
The youngest self-made billionaire in Europe, according to Forbes magazine, Mr Zhevago, 37, has donated £100,000 to help us turn around St Mary's, a neglected primary school in the shadow of Battersea power station.
The amazingly generous pledge from the chief executive of Ferrexpo, the first Eastern European company to be listed on the London Stock Exchange main market, will be used to fund 85 reading volunteers at St Mary's, where half the children fail to make the grade in English and maths, and 80 per cent do not speak English as their first language.
As we reported yesterday, the volunteers will be recruited from among Evening Standard readers in a three-year project hailed by new headteacher Jared Brading as "a game-changing lifesaver" for St Mary's. A school library will also be created.
At Ferrexpo's Mayfair office, Mr Zhevago, whose net worth is estimated at £1.5 billion, said he had been "shocked by the illiteracy" exposed by our Get London Reading campaign and wanted to help the pupils of St Mary's, most of whom come from deprived families, because he also grew up poor and had been taught by his father, a mining engineer, that reading was "the producing equipment you need to achieve something in your life".
"I was myself not from a rich family, but as a boy I was told by my father that I would never carry the weight of illiteracy on my back as his grandparents had done," he said. "I will never forget how he promised me, 'Reading will not be a heavy weight for you. Once it is in your hands and your head, it will every day make your life better.'
"That is the gift I hope to pass on to these young children at St Mary's. Reading will allow them to be in a position to achieve something, making the world better for themselves, and making the world better for the world." His donation, to be ring-fenced for St Mary's, is the largest single pledge so far to our campaign, which began in June. It takes the total raised to £350,000 - enough to fund 700 reading volunteers and support 2,100 pupils.
An additional motivation for Mr Zhevago, as a father - to Ivan, 13, and Sofia, nine - was that he related to the worries of every parent that their children should "read well". He added: "Sofia is the same age as some of the pupils at St Mary's - and that makes me especially mindful of their concerns and thrilled to help."
He and his wife, Alina, also 37, an economics professor, hope to relocate from Kiev to London and have visited top private schools in London for Ivan, he said. "Education is fundamental to life chances and of course I want the best for my children.
"At the same time, in the Ukraine today we have almost 99 per cent literacy and I want to give a foot-up to less privileged children in London, where I spend a day a week, and to help in my small way to close the gap between state and private schools."
Mr Brading said: "The board of governors and myself are thrilled. It's an incredible gift, one that changes the prospects of these children and which will make a real difference to their life chances. I have set ambitious targets to raise the number of children succeeding from 52 per cent to 80 per cent, and we simply could not do it without these reading volunteers."
Sue Porto, chief executive of Volunteer Reading Help, our partner charity which will train the reading volunteers, said: "To make a difference to one child's life is amazing. To make a difference to hundreds is quite simply magnificent. This donation will enable us to transform the lives of 255 pupils at St Mary's in three years.
"The evidence suggests that young people are more likely to end up in prison and excluded from society if we don't intervene early. At St Mary's there are pupils for whom life is already almost unbearable. Large numbers live in severely impoverished households often with one parent, a few have parents in prison. Not only have they fallen behind with their education, they also lack a positive adult role model. Volunteers help children to develop critical reading skills and they are also consistent role models. I cannot stress how vital this is."
The shocking statistics of one in four London children being unable to read and write properly by the age of 11, as reported in our award-winning illiteracy investigation, took Mr Zhevago back to his youth in the USSR.
"In the Ukraine, everyone was taught to read and write because this was the government's responsibility, but on the other hand we were denied access to any information that challenged Soviet propaganda.
It felt like we were being deprived of something essential, and that feeling of something basic being missing and being unable to do anything about it made me relate to children who haven't learned to read properly in London."
He grew up in Zaporozhye near the Black Sea where, doted on by his mother, a kindergarten teacher, and encouraged by his father, he learned to read by the age of four. Later he graduated as an economist from Kiev National Economic University, moving into the world of commerce just as the iron curtain fell.
He was appointed chief financial officer of the Finances and Credit group, a large Ukrainian bank in which he would become the major shareholder, and was an opposition member of the Ukrainian parliament, later buying FC Vorskla, a Ukrainian premier league football team.
In the mid-nineties, having risen to be president of the bank, he and two partners paid $160 million for the newly privatised Ferrexpo iron ore mine at Poltava, near his childhood home.
Iron ore prices were depressed but he later bought out his partners and ramped up production. In 2007 Ferrexpo was listed on the London Stock Exchange and added to the FTSE 250 Index. Today the firm, of which he owns 51 per cent, is capitalised at £1.9 billion.
His investment in Get London Reading and St Mary's is his first big philanthropic move in the UK, he said. "I believe in this project because
literacy is the core skill to give a child a chance.
I would love others to follow the lead and take on other London schools so that St Mary's becomes the first special project school among many. The Standard has laid bare the nature of the challenge. Let's make a difference and get London reading."
Reader views (1)
"At the same time, in the Ukraine today we have almost 99 per cent literacy ...."
Q: Which English-speaking nation can also claim this desirable statistic?
A: None.
Our dysfunctional spelling makes it impossible for us to reach this giddy height.
Fix our spelling and we can achieve it.
- Allan, Christchurch , New Zealand, 25/11/2011 08:30
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