Why It Matters

Launch / Impact / High Results

For the first months, the three “librarian” staff would go to a location that was announced in the community: a local school, church grounds, a trading center as the location for distributing books. We would set up with a small table with the books. Each student would present an ID, the library worker would pull the log and update returned book and log the outgoing book and also have the student write in the reading logbook.

Word traveled swiftly throughout the region, and created an excitement for reading opportunities. Due to the popularity of the program, the schools in the community invited us to be embedded in the schools so that all the children in the surrounding schools would participate. The idea was gladly welcomed by the program.

With the introduction of the Reading Program at school level, this has created literacy movement within this community. The program is now active in 8 schools surrounding the Kitongo parish, and will be introduced into 4 additional schools by the beginning of the first quarter of 2019. The total numbers of students currently participating are 1,500.