edwardndlovulibrary

Today I have looked at a Swedish organization, Afrikagrupperna. They are located in Stockholm, but have local support teams all over Sweden. The text below is from their homepage about Edward Ndlovu Memorial TrusLibrary, and a translation made of me. I don't think those of you that follows my blog every week will find so much of news here, but it could be useful to know that a lot of people support this project. 
If you want to support this library a good idea is to contact Afrikagrupperna and ask them for banking number. It is important for us that you tell them that the support is for ENMT! You can be anonymous or give them your name. Both Jackson Ndlovu and I would appriciate if you tell us that you have given us support this way!
my email: [email protected]

 
ENMT är en organisation som driver bibliotek och når ut med böcker till 26 skolor i och omkring staden Gwanda i Matabeleland South. Projektet gäller stöd till att utveckla en läskultur och att bidra till ekonomisk och social utveckling. Aktiviteter i projektet är tillhandahållande av böcker och nödvändig information, kurser för bibliotekarier, rektorer, lärare och studiecirkelledare, stöd till bildande av studiecirklar och uppbyggnad av administrativ kapacitet. I studiecirklarna bearbetas ämnen som exempelvis jämställdhet och hiv/aids. Organisationen riktar sig till människor som arbetar och studerar i skolan men även till samhället i stort. Institutionellt stöd ges till andra bibliotek i distriktet och ett lokalt arkiv är i planeringsstadiet. Hjälp med lobbying erhålles för att få makthavare att tillhandahålla utvecklingsassistans till olika behövande områden.

ENMT is an organisation who is working with libraries and reach out with books to26  schools in and around the town of Gwanda in Matabeleland South. The project is a support to develop the Reading Culture and to contribute to economic and social development. Activities in the project is to provide books and necessary information, library training for the stuff, headmasters, teachers and study circle leaders, support to found study circles and to build up administrative capacity. In the study circles you learn about subjects as gender and iv/aids. The organisation is for the people working in schools but also to the community in all. Institutional support is given to other libraries in the District and a local archive is planned. They get help to lobby among the leaders of the community to provide developing assistance to different needs in the area.

This is a lovely picture from Gwanda and the Edward Ndlovu Library!
The school children come to the Library from most of the schools which are located in walking distance from the central placed library. They can borrow 1-2 books and take home (that is if they have bought a library card, which cost a small sum every year), they can sit in the library and read, sometimes there is a story teller who tells them an interesting story or even makes a “book talk”.

That is to present a book suitable for the age and reading skills, in a way that makes it popular to the children and “everybody” wants to borrow just that book. It is not easy to catch up the children all the time, but if you really make a good “book talk” a few times the children starts to listen to you at once next time. I also check what book I talked about last time I saw this group of children (you have to make a very good dairy about your book talks) ask them questions about what they liked the book, how many have read it and if they can recommend it.

Children love to give books points.
That is: how many points do you give this book from 1 to 10? You can make a list on to put on the wall where the children can arrange the books they read during a semester, from the best to the worse. Of course these books have to have their on shelf and are to be marked somehow. On the wall the children can write a resume on the book, tell the title, the author, the illustrator, what the story was about and so on. They listen more to each other than to you.

For a whole school year I had 2 girls coming into the library making “the week’s book” (or the book of the month). They recommended a book they had read (it has to be one of the library books) telling which grouped of children that could like it and why, if it was suitable for parents and so on. This was very popular. All the children rushed up to their shelf and looked for the new book and it was a long queue of children who wanted that particular book.

The girls doing this were 12-13 years old, and they took responsibility for choosing different books suitable for different children.

Love from me as a school librarian in Sweden with a special interest in Gwanda Matabeleland South in Zimbabwe. Kersti