The Bookworm Kiddies Club

Southern African Wildlife College supports local communities

As a way of generating a love for reading from a young age, the Southern African Wildlife College Resource Centre started the Bookmobile Project in 2012. The main goal of the project is to make books available to children from the local community. These children do not have access to reading material, as there are no community libraries and most schools do not have a functional library.

The pioneer school for the project was Lumukisa Primary in Acornhoek. The Resource Centre used books that were donated by Biblionef – a book donating agency – and graded them according to the children’s developmental needs. A book box for each grade, containing on average 30 books, was delivered to the school. Children have the opportunity to read the books during breaks and even in class once they have completed their work. The book boxes are left in the classrooms for a full school term, checked by the Resource Centre staff on a fortnightly basis and thereafter collected for any repair work before being returned for the next cycle.

It was decided to expand the project to more schools in the community namely Manyeleti, Nxalati and Mtembeni Primary. The very generous initial donor Biblionef gave a commendable number of books to the three additional schools.

The project started off with paper boxes for carrying the books from classroom to classroom, but by the end of the year enough plastic boxes had been sourced for each of the schools in the project. Every classroom now boasts a durable plastic container.

Although a large number of books were donated, the College would like to surpass the goal of a child to book ratio of 1:1. Funding is needed for the purchasing, maintenance and replacement of books, as well as for transportion costs. The future goal is to start a small library at every school.

For more information on the project or to lend your support, please contact the Resource Centre Manager Sunel Lindeque at +27 (0)15 793 7315

Peace Parks Foundation is a business partner of the Southern African Wildlife College for training initiatives in the region’s transfrontier conservation areas and is also subsidising the College’s higher education course students.

For more College news, read the latest edition of The Bateleur.

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