Hello Mulenga and Neighbours,
I came across this website today whilst researching something for another village in Nepal. http://www.roomtoread.org/countries/zambia.html

The organisation is called Room to Read. They have started a new sector in Zambia in 2007. I wonder Mulenga, if you have heard of them? They could be someone who you might try to partner with. Has anyone else heard of them or already sent in an enquiry? If not, I will try to maek contact or in the least, find more information about what they have achieved so far in Zambia. I know that they have donated 50 children's books to a library in Khandbari village.

Here is a short description of their proposed work in ZAmbia from thei website:

In 2007, Room to Read will begin to supply thousands of children with enhanced educational resources and infrastructure. In February 2007, we hired a Zambia Country Director who is building a talented local team comprised of the School Room, Reading Room, and Local Language Publishing Program Officers. Together, the team will partner with Zambian communities to address the country's specific educational needs.

Our goals for our first year in Zambia are ambitious:

Begin partnering with local NGO's
Establish 100-150 libraries
Network with local illustrators, authors and publishers and publish three local language titles (languages to be determined)
Launch our School Room Program and construct as many as fifteen schools
Implement internal monitoring systems for each program
Programs & Results
Program Total Thru 2007 2008 (Projected)
Libraries Established - 50
New Local Language Titles - -
Schools Constructed - -
Girls on Scholarship - 200
Computer & Language Labs Established - -

If anyone has any other information, please let me know. Meanwhile I will keep researching.
Carolyn

Dear Neighbours,

Thank you Carolyn for the the site you discovered.It is a very interesting site and it will be great to network with them.

Unfortunately there is very little inform about them and in fact they do not have any contact details for their office in Zambia.

Is it possible to include them on the list of organisation we can contact and then send them the standard application that have been sent to the other organisations?

As Carolyn wrote 'anyone with additional infomation about them' should feel free to to write.

Mulenga

Hi Everyone,

I am most delighted to inform you all that we have finally received the books- 70 in all.

This just goes to confirm that a lot can be done to help others if we really put our skills and effort to doing this.

Thank you very much everyone for the effort that you all put in.

Mulenga

Mulenga- that's very exciting news!
Could you give us a short update on where things are up to with Garden? How many books you have- how many more would you like? What equipment do you have- what do you still need? What other plans do you have for 2008?
I think it would help us focus a bit more.

I hope the kids enjoy their new books :-)
Carolyn

Hi Carolyn and everyone,

Indeed I agree with you Carolyn a small update is really vital.

At the moment we have received the 400 mark in terms of books we have sourced,have a computer in the Library and incidentally yesterday we started computer Literacy lessons for 8 children.

As for the centre cultural Dancing and drama has been introduced with the help of a local organisation called Barefeet.You should see the smiles on the guys when they are expressing themselves through dancing.It is surprising how other children from the neighbourhood are trying to outdo the children who come to our centre.One of this days I think a local festive of some kind will really be great the guys.

7 of the children we are sponsoring have now been moved from the local community schools and are now in the regular Government school and this year will be a great teat for our Literacy development programme as most of the children,9,to be exact are in examination classes.Indeed the project as a whole will be on test as all our programmes are interrelated.

coming back to our Library Project,we still need to source furniture such as desk or tables and chairs as the guys sit on the floor,a printer,a photocopier,a scanner and very soon we will be looking for a full time-volunteer if possible-librarier.

As for the plans for 2008,Top is to start a self financing project,preferrable an internet cafe and also find resources to erect a new wallfence around our project as the current one has fallen down.As for the guys,the boys football team want us to see if there can be a way they can go and watch the first ever FIFA World Cup to be hosted in Africa as you may all know that South Africa is less than a day's drive from Zambia.As for our dancers mostly girl,who are incidently already a daring to many are looking foward to having a tour, especially to Europe.Great dreams which can easily be realised.

Thank you very much for all the support we have received from you and we hope to continue receiving it this year as well.

Mulenga

Hi Mulenga- thanks for such a fantastic update. It's so great to read how many things have been achieved so far!
I think we still need more books- 400 can be read in no time!
Your idea of a self-financing project sounds like a very good one- and timely! It would be easier to buy furniture and things like that with money earnt- rather than trying to get donations from elsewhere. I'm sure there are many examples of setting up internet cafe's on Nabuur- is this an area that you need assistance in? Please let us know.

Keep up the great work! I hope the team gets to the World Cup!
Regards
Carolyn

Hi Mulenga,
I have read the Room to Read website extensively. They have done some fantastic work around the globe! I found out from the site that the Country Director for Zambia is Mr Lovemore Nikhoma. There aren't any contact details for him, however I have emailed Global Headquarters and have copied you in on this too. I'm not sure how far the Zambia Chapter has been developed, but I think they are agroup for you to keep an eye on- and make some kind of contact with- once I can get some more information from them!
Let's see how this goes...
Regards
Carolyn

Hi again, I haven't hard back from anyone at Room to Read. I will keep an eye on their website and try again as I think that if you could make contact with them thre would be some opportunities for collaboration in the near future. Carolyn

Hi everyone,it's been a bit quite on Garden lately!
just by way of an update- I contacted UNICEF Zambia to explore way which they might be able to help YOSOFO. Here is their reply:
Dear Ms Carolyn,

I write in response to your request for support for YOFOSO which you made through our country representative Lotta. firstly, i wish to express my gratitude at the work your are doing in supporting the children's learning
needs in Zambia. As the Education section of UNICEF Zambia our main work is aimed at supporting the ministry of education in its quest to provide for
the education needs of the Zambian children particularly at basic education level. We also support a few NGOs that are recognized by the Ministry of Education to compliment their efforts in education provision.

At the moment we are not able to directly give support to your organization, however, we are glad to link you to some organizations that can assist you. For the library books you can contact our partner Read beyond Zambia. they have a large collection of books and are looking for institutions to donate books to. am sure they will be glad to give you somebooks. Their construct person is Mr. Nsama Chikwanka. his number is +260955785903 ad email readzambia@yahoo.co.uk . for the sports activities you could contact Right to Play. the country manager is Joe makano +260 211
261689 and email brajoe80@hotmail.com. i would also encourage you to get your organization linked to the Ministry of education' directorate of open
and distance education. they could assist in provision of more materials.

I will follow up with the Read Beyond Zambia group in the next couple of weeks. Mulenga has already received some assistance from Right to Play last year.

I'll keep you all informed.
Carolyn

Thanks Carolyn,

It has indeed been quite on Garden. It could be the challenge of trying to secure shipment of Book to us which has brought us to this point of quiteness?

That we still need more books and furniture plus a computer,a printer and a photo-copier is true,I however I still think that if we are to come up with some kind of teams working on the different task of the Library,like I think we will do with the internet issue ideas and solutions maybe found.

On our part here the Library Project is making an impact local as last week,19/05/08,our team myself and 4 of our trainee Libraries-Children,were invited Africa KID-SAFE,a local network of organisations working with Children on the Streets or at risk of ending up on the streets,to share with them our success in term of children ownership of the project.It was the first time that such a siminal was held and the involvment of children as we are doing ensures that a project is easily sustained even with a shoe-string budget like ours.Our children also learnt a lot as the were accorded to meet experts on Library issues including a leading lecturer at our local University.It is our sincere hope that such kind of interactings will be a motivation for these disadvantaged children to put in a lot of effort in their schoolwork.

Lastly this weekend our culture group is scheduled to take part in a festive called Story-telling.In this activity children tells a story from books that they read through dance and drama.

wishing you all a week-end and please lets us reactive our village.

Mulenga,LR Garden

Thanks Carolyn,

It has indeed been quite on Garden. It could be the challenge of trying to secure shipment of Book to us which has brought us to this point of quiteness?

That we still need more books and furniture plus a computer,a printer and a photo-copier is true,I however I still think that if we are to come up with some kind of teams working on the different task of the Library,like I think we will do with the internet issue ideas and solutions maybe found.

On our part here the Library Project is making an impact local as last week,19/05/08,our team myself and 4 of our trainee Libraries-Children,were invited Africa KID-SAFE,a local network of organisations working with Children on the Streets or at risk of ending up on the streets,to share with them our success in term of children ownership of the project.It was the first time that such a siminal was held and the involvment of children as we are doing ensures that a project is easily sustained even with a shoe-string budget like ours.Our children also learnt a lot as the were accorded to meet experts on Library issues including a leading lecturer at our local University.It is our sincere hope that such kind of interactings will be a motivation for these disadvantaged children to put in a lot of effort in their schoolwork.

Lastly this weekend our culture group is scheduled to take part in a festive called Story-telling.In this activity children tells a story from books that they read through dance and drama.

wishing you all a week-end and please lets us reactive our village.

Mulenga,LR Garden

Hi everyone,
today I wrote to Read Beyond Zambia to see if they can help us with a book donation.
I did a Google search on them and found this article on-line.
I have attached it here as it I think it is an interesting overview of the challenges in Zambia around improving literacy. The lack of a reading culture in Zambia is also highlighted as a serious concern- as Mulenga has alerted us to more than once!
If you have the time- take a look at the article.
Fingers crossed Read Beyond Zambia can help us!
Carolyn

Ubutala book project.doc

Hello, just wanted to let you know that we heard back from Read beyond Zambia and their email response is below. Whilst they can't provide us with book donations they appear to be keen to see if there are opportunities to work together. Hopefully a meeting will ocuur with Mulenga if feasable.

QUOTE:
I read your mail, and must add was elated that there are such initiatives trying to promote literacy especially among the out of school peri urban youths.

It is RBZ's intention to either visit YOFOSO in Garden or ask for a meeting with the local leadership and possibly explore areas for synergy. It is sad that I cannot commit RBZ to donating reading materials to help the young women and men. What we have been doing the past eight months is collect children's reading books for use by school reading clubs we have set up as an one intervention.

Our mission statement: to identify, promote and coordinate activities and foster partnerships with organisations and institutions that promote reading or are incidental to reading. I trust YOFOSO is one such organisation, and it would be enriching for us to explore synergies.

We have three strategies as an NGO: School outreach, Awareness and advocacy, and Governance and Institutional Development. We have a set of activities in each of the above.

Thank you Carolyn. I have read the response from Read Beyond Zambia with graditude.With our future generation is to be empowered with knowledge,then providing them with reading materials and space is key,hence networking with other organisations is most welcome.Donations are not the only way people can assist others but even mere sharing of experiences goes a long ,long way.

We will be contacting our new found friends soon.

Regards,

Mulenga

I am a new-comer to the village. I am actually from Zimbabwe even though my profile says something different. It has been my desire to establish such a project for my people. Being a librarian and still studying library science at the university of Namibia (masters in Library and information science)i would like to find out how best i can be of a help. I could look for other organizations that donate books or i could actually comeover sometime and help you with classification and cataloguing if you need that kind of help.

David