A book for every child in a remote village in Uganda

Dear Friend, March 2nd, 2023, is World Book Day! In Uganda, like in many other Sub-Saharan African countries, this is not a day that is celebrated a lot. yet we should. The Wordbook Day.Com states that ‘Reading for pleasure is the single biggest indicator of a child’s future success – more than their family circumstances, their parents’ educational background or their income.’ For us in Uganda and particularly in our village of Nyungu, children do not own books. As a matter of fact, some adults don’t own books either. They are illiterate. The adult literacy rate of Uganda increased from 56.1 % in 1991 to 79 % in 2021 growing at an average annual rate of 6.15%. We still have over 20% of adults who cannot read and write. We have 4 primary schools in our area each about 2.5 miles apart. None of these schools has a school library. None of the schools own a computer. Children start school and finish primary school level (grade 7) to join secondary school before they own a book. Before they take basic computer lessons. We are working to change this. Our family has set up the first village library in our entire district. The Nyungu Streams Village Library. The library is owned by the village and run by an elected village committee. The village library has a daily newspaper available for community members to read. We have over 250 books and magazines for children and adults. Our reading space accommodates 8 adults and 10 children at every single sitting. It is small but ‘enough’ for our village to use. We are excited about the contribution we are making. We want to do more. We want to conduct the mobile library for schools. We want to make sure that every child of 5-6 years in our community owns at least one good book. That’s the age at which the majority of the children start school in our community. This year, 304 children started primary school at the 4 schools in our neighborhood. Will you support us to hand them a book? Each good book will cost us about $5 in Uganda. We are also looking for $2,500 to procure a tricycle with a big metallic bookcase for our mobile library needs. This way, we will visit each of the 4 primary schools in our village once a month with books to lend out to children and teachers.

Our work is intentional and we are sure to make a great contribution to children's motivation to remain in school. Many children are dropping out of school. Data from the Ministry of Education shows that of the 1,880,000 learners who joined Primary One in 2016, only 832,659 completed Primary Seven. This means that 1,047,341 (56%) learners dropped out along the way. This statistic is appalling. Partner with us today to bring the change we desire! Lets promote reading together. Like Worldbook Day.com ‘’We want to see more children, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds, with a life-long habit of reading for pleasure and the improved life chances this brings them.’’ Send us an email: Streams Community at nyungustreamscommunity@gmail.com