This year’s reading program was a little different than others. Not as cute and punny as Chick it out, Read a Book, Book,Book. Not as much physical work as planting the trees we read for in Read for the Green. Not as local as all the beans to soup kitchens we’ve read for in the Grow Your Mind years. I didn’t get as much positive feedback as usual, and our new reporting system didn’t bring out the competitive fun of reading more and more in the upper grades… But in some ways it has been the best ever. The details were created to meet a challenge from kids inspired by our all-school read of The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind. We have partnered with another school and an established international organization that provides support to the place where our donated library will be created so it can be an ongoing resource. And, perhaps most meaningfully, we have a personal contact with someone on site. We’d call this in 21st century lingo an extension of our ” personal learning networks”. T.K. has been a terrific correspondent, asking and answering many questions to try to assure the success of the venture, sending pictures and involving his students. In the process, he has helped us understand a bit more about his part of Ghana and the needs of his future library patrons. Here are some excerpts from his email today (in part answering questions I posed last week):
Hello Elizabeth,
We are appreciative of your work so far in helping us set up our Community Library. My vision for the library is to transform it into a community school in the long run. My district is amongst the lowest performing in the country. Last year we had almost all schools not scoring the pass mark to gain admission into the senior high. This news made me move to my district to contribute in my own little way to improve upon educational standards in the district. That's why we are starting with the library.
This library will serve the entire community - "those who will patronize." Young, old, parents, artisans, farmers but mostly the youth and school going age. The books will be borrowed. The library committee has set rules to govern borrowing. My community is majority Christian with few traditionalists and Muslims. Books on other cultures will be much appreciated. The community folks are predominantly farmers so books on irrigation, farming, and animal husbandry will be good. Beekeeping is a major source of income so books on beekeeping will be appreciated. Mathematics, English and the Sciences --We'll love such books. Books on information technology will be great. Reference books are very much of use here in my community.
The internet is not readily available for the school going kids in the community. Virtually all schools in the community have no internet access. So the iPads will help. In the future Opened Hearts will run an after-school class in basic knowledge in I.T. for the patrons of the library. My district is behind in terms of I.T. knowledge. Encyclopedias, dictionaries and other reference books will do us much good. At the A.L.P. (African Library Project) summit I learned all books can be used for a purpose.. So any book you think will help us. We'll also appreciate that from you.. We've purchased the wood for the additional shelves and have started making them. We also extended electricity to the new building. We had a clean-up exercise at the premises to tidy up the place. When we're done we'll move the shelves and table from the old building to the new one.
The kids are happy to be part of a bigger dream. "It's always smarter to raise healthy kids than repair damaged adults " We extend greetings to the entire family.. We love you all.
Yours,
T.K.
You can perhaps understand how worthwhile this endeavor seems here in our world of plenty and connectivity. TK and the SSFS library staff are working to figure out what free or low cost software is out there to make a user-friendly catalog and circulation system and will try to create the catalog by “beeping” all the ISBNs of the books we are sending into that system. It’s fun to apply our experience and knowledge in service to a brand new library. We’ve gathered a pretty good collection and will find some books to fill his specific requests in the next few days. The boxes need to be mailed to New Orleans by the 21st of this month and we look forward to hearing of their safe arrival in Nkwanta. Ghana is the only African nation I have visited and I am thinking maybe I need to go back. Any books on beekeeping, farming, etc. or other topics mentioned above and any sturdy book boxes gratefully accepted. Books do change minds and lives – keep reading.
- Elizabeth
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| Seen in a bookstore in Berkeley Springs, West Virigina |
