The Bookshelf and Learning Project was initiated last year (2008) as a result of the efforts of the Sandton Rotaract club to support a child care centre that was established by the Sandton Rotary club at Itsoseng, an informal settlement just past the Lion Park.
At the time, the Rotaract club had raised money to buy a bookshelf, but didn't have enough money to purchase anything that was big enough to meet the needs of the centre, and that was the start of The Bookshelf Project – a bookshelf 1.8 meters wide, 1.5 meters high and with really thick shelves was built.
The vision of the project is to facilitate a love of reading, to make a resource available to the children that would not otherwise have access to books and to empower them with skills and confidence that will academic careers.
The first goal of the project is to partner with as many centres as possible, to build bookshelves for these centres and to fill these bookshelves with books that will bring joy, happiness, dreams, hope, passion, learning and all the other good things that come from reading. The second goals is to run study skills and support programs for as many children as possible.
Based on the pilot project that was initiated in August last year:
- The Itsoseng Centre has grown to over 170 children and new children are joining the centre all the time!
- A second bookshelf has been installed and almost 1000 books have been given to the centre. Although there are a lot of ways to collect books, the key is to ensure that the books given to the centres are books that will make a difference and are books that will be used.
- The bookshelf now has a full encyclopaedia, annotated dictionaries, study guides and text books, reference books, reading books for the older kids, stories for the younger kids, picture books, books that are being used by the kindergarten teacher who does extra classes for the younger kids on Saturday mornings, books written by South African authors, a selection of books around SA history and a whole lot of others.
- These books have been received from a number of sources including Crawford Primary School – Sandton, Books Galore in Lonehill and Sunninghill, Hay House Publishers as well as a number of friends and family and anonymous doners.
- According to Paulos, the gentleman that runs the centre, there has been a marked increase in the number of the older kids that are coming into the centre who would previously have been going into the shebeens, a result of the resource that is now available to them.
- Reading groups have become a common part of the centre with the older kids reading to the younger kids. The last time I was there, about 40 of the younger kids were crowded around one of the older kids, mesmerized as she read to them.
- There has also been a marked improvement in the language skills of the older kids as a result of the dictionaries and the support that Paulos is giving to them.
- On most Saturday mornings, additional kindergarten classes are run by a wonderful lady called Rose whose lessons are facilitated by the resource that she now has access to.
- Through the project, R435, 000 has been raised as individual 'scholarships' for a number of kids. This money will be used to further their education. It is intended that some of this money will be used to buy glasses for the kids that need them – not being able to see the board is a serious barrier. R300, 000 has also been collected for three schools!
- A series of study methods courses was run towards the end of last year and more are planned this year. According to Paulos, there was a 90% pass rate last year across all the kids that attended the study methods sessions which was very exciting as I anticipated a much lower pass rate. In order to facilitate these workshops it is the intention to train Paulos so that he will be able to not only help the kids at Itsoseng, but also run workshops in other centres. As it was he was an integral part of the success we achieved last year given the trust that he has with the kids and his capacity to translate and explain some of the concepts in the kids' first language.
- From a bigger perspective, I have started to make contact with other Rotary groups, community initiatives, individuals and other centres and am looking to set up a number of similar initiatives given the success and the learning from this one.
- At this stage, a goal has been created to set up at least another 10 to 15 bookshelves in the next year or so and to thereby provide a resource to thousands of children and to this end a second reading scheme has already been initiated in the rural surrounds of Umtata.
- There has been a number of other charitable organisations that have also benefitted as a result of this initiative as books that are unsuitable for the kids have been handed on to these organisations. As an example, I do not give any books containing violence etc. to the kids. There have also been quite a few books that have been donated that are just not that suitable e.g. I received a very beautiful book on Victorian furniture that was quite valuable, but not in Itsoseng.
- Over 2000 books have been given to these charities so far. At an average of R30 per book, this equates to approximately R60, 000 that will help these charities. The goal this year is to collect 10, 000 books for these charities.
- On this note I am currently setting up a 'library' system with Paulos and the kids to control how the books are used and to ascertain which books are the most popular and where do we need to focus on collecting in the future.
- As more and more centres are set up, I am also anticipating that once or twice a year books are swapped between centres which will help to ensure that there is a continuous stock of new books and that the older books are replaced. (I guess that there will be favourites which will be kept by each of the centres).
- In so doing, the model becomes sustainable and the effort now will result in benefits for at least the next 5 to 10 years or more. It is also my intention to create a set of books that will be kept together and circulated through the centres containing favourites that may have to be bought e.g. Roald Dahl
As each bookshelf is filled, a treasure-trove is created that will be a delight to thousands, if not tens of thousands of children into the future and with reading as a skill, opportunities will be provided to these children that may not have even be dreamt about; and as each child is empowered to learn, a future is opened that would never have been possible otherwise.
For more information contact Chris on +2782 363 1958
