One of the biggest obstacles to a well-rounded education in Africa is the lack of access to books. Any kind of books—books full of facts about interesting subjects or just books that are enjoyable to read. Students in school learn to read, but learning anything well takes practice, but there are no books to help them improve their reading. Aside from some well-used minimal textbooks, they have nothing to show them the magic of books and world remains a little bit smaller. Their reading levels remain sub-par and moving through school remains difficult.
This project I am starting will put books in an already-established library space within one of the schools in Damanko. The room is in this junior high school at the end of the building. With the money that is donated, I and interested community members will refurbished the unused, slightly deteriorated library room—replace the window shutters for security, build furniture such as extra shelves and chairs, and paint the room to make it a productive and inspiring learning space. The bulk of the money, however, will go to buying books at a heavily discounted rate from the Ghana Book Trust in Accra and transporting them back to Damanko. The school community will provide all the labor, the management, and not to mention the actual building. Or, instead, we will receive the bulk of the books from state-side book drives assisted by the African Library Project. I'm waiting to see which one (or bits of both) will work out.The library room has been acting as a store room for several years, so refurbishment is definitely needed, and, really looked forward to.
We hope to put about 300-500 books in the library. My plan is to have half of those books be everything from Dr Seuss to Harry Potter; in other words, easy children's books to young adult/teen books. The other half will be interesting encyclopedic textbooks that are very topical and contain extra information about core subjects which currently have a dearth of resources—basic science, geography, geology, natural science, world cultures, and technology.
This small library will also allow the headmaster of the junior high school and I to start and maintain a Reading Club. Many students come into the the first year of junior high school with barely a first grade reading level. Teachers are forced to waste time starting at the ABCs. Having this library resource will give the teachers more teaching materials and will also encourage the students to improve their reading. It is hard to convince students to read and to read well when there is nothing entertaining to read and this skill becomes a utilitarian skill only.
Students like my friend Precious love to read but have nothing to read. Precious is a very bright student with big plans for her future. She is one of the few students who is a very accomplished reader, but her thirst for entertaining and enlightening things to read goes mostly unquenched. She has been working her way through my small personal Peace Corps stash of books. Right now she is tackling all seven of the Chronicles of Narnia books.
Other students like my friend Sudi, a teenager in junior high school, have great potential, but his reading suffers because of inconsistant teaching and no materials to encourage him or help him improve his reading.
Ebenezer is also in junior high and loves stories. He loves to perform and tell stories, and a lot of stories come from other storytellers. He reads moderately well, and tells me he would love more books so he can study them and tell more stories.
There are around 3,000 school children in Damanko, so 250-300 books may seem small and inadequate to you, but the community needs only a small repository that they can manage. And 250 books is more books than any of these students have seen cumulatively in their lives.
Please help these students discover the world in books! The link below will take you to a secure Peace Corps website where you can make your donations. Thank you in advance!
I know this is late but great job Kristi!
ReplyDelete