The Meru County’s library will partner with schools in rural areas to make books accessible in a bid to empower marginalized learners in the region.
The partnership brings together teachers from Meru County and American Friends of Kenya, an NGO, which will educate them on how to establish and maintain a school library, as well as provide bulk lending services of books and educational materials.
Speaking during a mentorship forum held in Meru town library, Meru County librarian Richard Wanjohi disclosed that the forum was aimed at empowering marginalized schools within the region.
He said the initiative will see teachers gain skills on how to maintain libraries and the need to establish and cultivate a reading culture in their respective schools.
“There is a huge gap in schools located in rural areas where academic institutions do not even have storybooks that children can read. Through sponsorship from American Friends of Kenya, we support school libraries with books, computers and information materials. We also provide bulk lending services to schools whereby teachers can borrow books for one month,” noted Wanjohi.
Faith Wanja, a pioneer of the ‘Successful People Read’ educational reading programme and an attendee at the event, highlighted the importance of parents instilling a reading culture in their children from a young age.
“Parents should come out and start reading so that their children can learn from them.
We introduced a family reading culture in Meru County where we have parents coming with their children and showing them how to read and this is a good example to our children,” said Wanja.
Caroline Nkirote from Lailuba Primary School in Tigania East expressed her excitement and appreciation of the initiative.
“I am happy to have this privilege to visit Meru County Library. We have learnt a lot and whatever we are taking back to our village schools I know will definitely bring change,” she said, regretting that parents in their region are too poor to even afford supplementary education materials such as story books and crayons.
George Ikiugu, deputy head teacher of MCK Kiremu School in Tigania East, said the training would go a long way in empowering them.
“We came to know more on how we can support our learners in terms of reading since we come from marginalized areas where learners are suffering and some have never seen a story book,” said Ikiugu.
He said they would set up libraries in their schools.
The teachers expressed hope that such forums would provide an opportunity for them to aid learners achieve academic prowess and fulfill their academic goals.
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