APP’s partnership with the charity Book Aid International
31 October 2011
APP is pleased to announce it is partnering with Book Aid International and values and recognises all the benefits this partnership will bring to APP and the inmates, prison staff and prison families it serves.
The great thing about the partnership is that Book Aid will provide books and ship them to us. Book Aid is also able to offer us a little funding to help purchase local books; the importance of having local, culturally-relevant literature in the libraries must not be overlooked.
Book Aid can also provide funding for things such as shelving, soft furnishings etc. – all of the things that make up a good library.
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Glorias Asiimwe, APP’s Library and Education officer, and APP Advisor, Maria Cotera recently met with Karen Sharkey, Programme Development Librarian at Book Aid, when Glorias was on her study tour in the UK.
Book Aid sends shipments of books to Uganda three to four times a year and APP will be receiving regular donations via these shipments.
The books will be used in all of APP’s education projects, some of which are detailed below.
Kigo Men’s Prison
APP hopes to use the next shipment of books in its next project at the container library at Kigo men’s prison, which currently has a small APP book box for staff and inmates. There are 1,000 inmates at this prison and APP would like to establish a container library there to better serve the inmates and staff.
Robert Waswa, its project manager, has identified a crate (about 3m x 6m) for APP to purchase and it is hoped that work on this project will start in November. It is estimated that it will take 30 days for APP to fully prepare and stock the container, ready for the opening in early December.
The reason for proposing a container library is twofold:
Firstly, it is much cheaper than a full infrastructure project.
Secondly, it can be moved from one place to another, if the need arises.
One of APP’s current, strategic goals is to develop a replicable model and the container library is part of this. The entire cost of the container library is around £5,000. The books for the container library will include academic and vocational skills books, self -help and inspirational books, reference books, religious literature and general fiction.
Murchison Bay Primary School Library
APP hopes to use books from Book Aid in this school project, which is due for completion any day now. APP’s plans to completely refurbish and re-stock Murchison Bay Primary School Library, and employ, mentor and support a librarian to take ownership for the library, are almost fulfilled.
The goal is to produce a long-standing and sustainable environment in which the pupils, teachers, families and the wider community can access a wide range of high quality reading materials.
Naguru Children’s Remand Home
Book Aid supplies would help APP in its aims for Naguru Children’s Remand Home; built in 1954 to house 45 inmates it is now at around 4 times its capacity. The living conditions are poor and cramped; often the facility is understaffed.
The children there – of both sexes and around 180 in total, range from 5-17 and have varying levels of education; they have very limited access to education or recreation. Thus, APP is proposing the creation of a library facility in a part of the home allocated to it by the remand home.
Naguru’s library is likely to have 12 shelves, each holding 250 books, i.e.3,000 in total.
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About Book Aid International
Book Aid International is dedicated to increased access to books and other reading materials to support literacy, education and development across sub-Saharan Africa and to this end provided over 507,000 new books to over 2,000 libraries in 2010 and since 1954 has supplied 30 million books to partner libraries.
Books Change Lives
Book Aid International knows that ‘books change lives’.
Every year, it sends around half a million brand new books to its partners, working closely with the UK book and publishing trade who donate nearly all of the high quality, relevant books Book Aid sends.
Book Aid currently works in 12 countries in sub-Saharan Africa and also has a small programme in The Occupied Palestinian Territories
Book Aid International started working in Uganda in the 1990s and today donates books through two main distributing partners: National Library of Uganda and Kyambogo University (KYU). In 2010 it provided over 83,000 books, distributed to over 350 public and community libraries, primary and secondary schools, NGOs and teacher training colleges across all four regions of Uganda.
Link: http://www.bookaid.org/
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