Bring 15 Fatou Keita Books to 23 Village Libraries

We are grateful to donors to this project over the past several months. As noted in the July report, we spend donations as they come in, once we get to about $100 of new donations.  We are still not there yet, so we have currently not purchased books specifically for this project.

Late August 2019 did see the opening of a new library in Koho, in southerwestern Burkina Faso. This new library has an initial stock of about 300 books, mostly children's books purchased locally in Ouagadougou. We hope that in the coming months we can continue to purchase books for the library, which is already seeing good usage,

In our report last week we noted we would be purchasing books for the re-opened Koumbia library in August. We jumped the gun, and purchased the books yesterday (see photos). The Burkina Faso FAVL coordinator is going down to the southwest to visit some of the libraries, so we are taking advantage of that trip.

In other news, the multimedia center in Houndé has produced two more children's books. These are written by students in the Houndé region and illustrated by a telented teacher in the town. The current stories are about young women dealing with pressure for early marriage, and a book about women's activities in the villages. Visit the FAVL website for more information.

We are grateful to the donors for this project. We anticipate that in August we will go to the local bookstores in Ouagadougou and purchase about $100 worth of books, to be supplied to the recently re-opened library of Koumbia in southwestern Burkina Faso.

In other FAVL news:

The Kitengesa library in Uganda continues to thrive. This year a health reading camp was held for adult women, focusing on women’s cancer.  Another reading camp was held for teenagers, and a further women’s reading camp is planned for later in the year. The Kitengesa Library Band continues to practice and perform.

In Burkina Faso, we continue to support 34 community libraries. Terrorist activity in northern Burkina Faso unfortunately has meant that four libraries are temporarily closed due to danger (schools and administrative buildings are targets.)  For the libraries that are open, we continue to do the best we can to provide regular assistance to mayors and rural councils in managing the libraries, supply select libraries with new books, train librarians, and offer salary support for some of the librarians. We completed 22 summer reading camps last summer 2018, serving more than 550 4th and 5th graders. The 25 kids selected for each camp got a big injection of age-appropriate books, learned many new games, discussed hygiene tips, and made masks and comic books. We hope that many of them will become life-long readers.

In Ghana, our able partner organization CESRUD and its library coordinatorcontinue to manage the three libraries of Sumbrungu, Gowrie-Kunkua, and Sherigu. These libraries regularly receive 30+ visits a day. They are open for night reading, as they are now connected to electricity. Donors this year helped fix the fans (it gets to 110 degrees during the day!). After school reading programs were held in September and are planned for this summer. All three libraries received several hundred new books over the course of the year thanks to support from Biblionef Ghana.

Updates and lots of photos from all three countries are regularly posted to the FAVL blog.

Over the past several months we have received $50 towards this project (thank you donors!) so we purchased a selection of 17 novels by African authors.  These novels are among the most popular books in the other libraries we support.

The books are intended for a new library in the village of Koho in southwestern Burkina Faso.The Koho community library is a collaborative project between the community of Koho, the mining company HGO, and the mayor's office of the commune of Houndé. A generous donor funded the bulk of the project, and the Houndé Gold Operations company, together with the Kogo community, have agreed to allow a meeting hall that was constructed last year to be the site of the library. Negotiating agreements among the partners has been time-consuming, but we are looking forward to the library opening in May. These books will be part of the collection.

We continue to support 34 libraries in Burkina Faso, 3 in northern Ghana, and the Kitengesa Community Library in Uganda.

On the morning of Tuesday, December 15, at around 9 am, at the library of Rouko, in the presence of some readers and the librarian, a batch of forty books of African authors was given to Sawadogo Alimissi, first deputy to the mayor for the library. This gift of books is part of the program of FAVL-BF to support and support the libraries of its network. Mr. Sawadogo first addressed the readers by encouraging them to attend the library but also to be interested in reading before congratulating FAVL-BF for their accompaniment of the library through this gesture. He said that the donation of books challengeds the municipal council to take more commitment, responsibility and to get involved in the sustainability of the community library of Rouko.

Dans la matinée du mardi 15 décembre, aux environs de 9 heures, à la bibliothèque de Rouko, en présence de quelques lecteurs et du bibliothécaire, un lot d’une quarantaine de livres d’auteurs africains a été remis à Sawadogo Alimissi, premier adjoint au maire pour la bibliothèque. Ce don de livres s’inscrit dans la dynamique de FAVL-BF à soutenir et appuyer les bibliothèques de son réseau. Monsieur Sawadogo, s’est d’abord adressé aux lecteurs en les encourageant à fréquenter la bibliothèque mais aussi à s’intéresser à la lecture avant de féliciter FAVL-BF pour son accompagnement à travers ce geste. Cela est un acte fort, qui interpelle le conseil municipal à prendre plus d’engagement, de responsabilité et à s’impliquer dans la pérennisation de la bibliothèque communale de Rouko.