The roll out of school libraries has been an important part of BEFSA’s work to raise standards of literacy in the Amathole West Schools District. With the support of the Chicken Project Team at the Cherwell school in Oxford and Oxford University Press BEFSA has shipped a large number of children’s books and shelving to South African schools. Our volunteers have assisted schools in the setting up of these libraries and with the setting up of library book borrowing schemes.
We have been hugely encouraged by the response we have received from schools many of which have talked enthusiastically about the way in which their children have reacted to the arrival of these books. In some schools children are borrowing books on a regular, if not daily basis. As a result schools are asking for more and more books.
Our aim to develop a love for reading in schools where this had been absent has made a good start. With your help we will do more to ensure that library facilities are provided in more schools in the rural areas of South Africa.
