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TWO LITERACY PROJECTS
Rotary Club of Grahamstown Sunset,
South Africa
(D9320)
Makana
Public
Primary School
Library at Makana Public Primary School |
Gwen Mvula-Jamela had a dream for the school where
she taught. She wanted children at
Makana Public Primary School
to develop a love of books and a culture of reading. She also
dreamed of children being able to take books home to share with
their families. MPPS had a library with empty shelves and piles of
old text books …nothing more!
Gwen approached the Rotary Club of Grahamstown
Sunset, where Rotarian Norman Brown, a retired headmaster from
Greenbank Primary School in Cheadle,
England, made the link
between the needs of the children at
Makana
Public
Primary School and those of his former
school.
The pupils of Greenbank
hold an annual Charities Week of fundraising
and were looking for a recipient. With
Norman’s inspiration, they raised ZAR 48,000.00
(US$5,900.00) which was used by Rotary Sunset to buy about 1,000 new
books for Makana
Public
Primary School. These have been added to
the 2,000 used books, previously donated by generous members of the
public and some school libraries of Grahamstown.
Good Shepherd Primary School
principal Pru van de Linde with
DG Lionel Heath, Club President Jill Rothman, and Rotarian
Izak Smuts. |
While Makana
Public
Primary School pupils are
already using the new library stocked with the used books, Librarian
Nomvula Lubelwana has a mammoth but exciting task ahead of her, to
organise the covering and cataloguing of all the new books.
Good
Shepherd Primary School
Two hundred
and twenty-nine children at
Good
Shepherd
Primary School each received their very
own copy of a book called ‘Brenda has a Dragon in her blood’.
The
‘Dragon’ in Brenda’s blood is the HI Virus and for Brenda to keep
well,
the ‘Dragon’ needs to stay asleep! This true story of a little girl
from Africa, written by her adoptive mother Hijltje Vink, deals with
the day to day social and emotional challenges of a child and family
living with HIV.
Exciting developments in the pipeline will enable Rotary Grahamstown
Sunset to distribute a further 8000 Brenda Books to other school
children in Grahamstown, many of whom are dealing with the same
challenges as Brenda.
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