Build School Library & Storeroom for 650 Students

The school library has continued to be a beehive of activity since school opened in early February.  And more recently, our volunteers from the U.S. arrived in Agwata with many activities planned for teacher training, student learning, and older girls' life skills training.  And need we mention videos--a favorite of everyone!

We're grateful the library is available to be the center of all these activities while we are here.  And we had to carefully request and fit ourselves into the library's already busy "normal" schedule.  Each class teacher is encouraged to schedule time in the library weekly with her/her entire class, and most of them do!

This trip, our volunteers brought more videos, more laptops, more books on specific subjects which had been identified earlier, and also several classroom sets of books for our oldest two classes of nursery students.

So thank you, library donors, for making all these activities in the library possible:

• training teachers
• showing students and teachers how to use the encyclopedias
• sanitary pad kit distribution to older girl students
• using book bags with pre-recorded stories on cd players for our first and second graders
• creative learning activities and craft activities for a fun girls' program weekend activity
• showing videos even during the day with our special blackout curtains to make the room dark
• storing large laminated wall maps and poster type training aids for teachers
• providing an entire teachers' resource room
• allowing space for teachers to prepare their own lesson posters and learning aids
• providing 70 chairs that are also available for parent and large group meetings at school
• providing space for occasional outside trainings provided by the district or others
• allowing younger children to access many books and choose a book to read on their own!
• providing laptops which teachers can use for their own learning 
• locked dust free storage for the technology items
• a quiet place for our boarding students to study individually or in groups on the weekend
• a place where teachers can choose from adult ficition and non-fiction books to read for pleasure
• chess sets for game playing

The library gives the Agwata school teachers and students an enhanced opportunity for learning more about the entire world!

Thanks for making this awesome opportunity available to them!

Please share if you know others that might like to help with this!

Links:

• See our work via photos
• Learn more on our web site

I finally was able to visit the Agwata school for six weeks in August and September along with a teacher, Tricia, who traveled with me.  I'm happy to report that the Agwata is now very heavily used and a key part of the Agwata community.  The librarian, Lucy, remained at the library during Covid and has been a dedicated employee since the library opened its doors in mid-2019.

The library is used for many things.  While we were there, Tricia was able to do training for both teachers and students in the library.  Normally, when we are not there, the library is used by teachers for their daily planning activities, as well as special teaching sessions for their students. Students can also use the library during their lunch and free times to use textbooks for their studies and homework. Students who board at school can check out books as needed.  

During August and September, students learned how to use encyclopedias for research and how to write reports on specific assigned topics.

In order to support this increased usage of the library, additional funding is needed to purchase more textbooks as well as to provide a more extensive solar system to provide not only lighting for the library, but to power additional technology equipment and to provide seurity lighting outside. Because of the library's central location within the school compound, larger solar panels on the library's roof could also provide lighting to the teachers' quarters as well as the other classroom building with no solar power.

We thank you all for your past support of this project which made the library a reality and really changed the school and helped it attract students and teachers alike.  We encourage you to share this report with friends, family and co-workers who would like to help the students and teachers have increased study capabilities through more solar power.

Links:

• Visit our web site
• See our work visually through photos!