On January 26-27 UgCLA conducted its fifth workshop for all of it member libraries. For the first time the workshop was hosted by one of the members: Kabubbu Community Library, which, thanks to generous support from the UK, is not only unusually well built and well stocked but is associated with a village conference centre with facilities for meetings and accommodation for guests. It's a great place and considerably cheaper than a hotel. We were joined for the workshop by two friends from abroad: Sarah Switzer, who is working for Under the Reading Tree in Tanzania, and Katie Uher, who represents Ready for Reading in Rwanda. They are doing great work in their respective countries, and they were a great help at our workshop too.
The workshop was funded by a grant promised by Pockets of Change (POC), a small donor organization in New York. POC has offered to fund the purchase of ten sets of children's books (valued at $200 each) to be distributed to libraries on the basis of proposals that they will be writing over the next month; then in August it will fund another workshop at which the recipient libraries will report on their experiences with the books. So the theme of the workshop was "Working with Children," and we prepared for it by purchasing the initial $200 set - actually, we found that after spending slightly less than that we had accumulated a representative, if not comprehensive, collection of the children's books available in Uganda. The exercise made us aware of two salient issues: most of the books are highly didactic, and there are very few picture books available (we are also aware that there are nowhere near enough books in local languages, but for this purpose we were focusing on English books since we don't know in which parts of the country the recipient libraries will be).
Altogether, we got about 100 volumes, including a range of traditional and modern story books as well as books with advice and information on health and social issues. The first session was spent in a World Café format, with the participants moving from one set of books to another and discussing them. Then we had two sessions on reading aloud with younger and with older children (our hosts at Kabubbu imported some children for the purpose), and the last session that day focused on displaying books for children to read by themselves and on setting up programs to encourage them to do so.
Next day there were presentations from four different member libraries about projects they had carried out to involve adults in reading with children, and the final session was about developing a proposal for using the books, to be presented to POC. The proposals must be written by Feb. 28. POC will help us to select the winners, and then we'll have a further meeting with the managers of these libraries to give them the books and to make sure that appropriate systems of evaluation and reporting are in place.
The workshop was better attended than ever, with more than forty libraries represented, and, as has become usual by now, everyone participated enthusiastically. Some of the members were new, for UgCLA has been joined by more than ten new libraries recently (bringing our total membership to 55), but the new people fit in well and some were especially active. Everyone stayed for the Annual General Meeting, which was the last event of the day, and there were not even any complaints when we announced a rise in our annual subscription from 20,000 to 30,000 Uganda shillings (from about $10 to $15). Somehow or other we seem to have hit on a winning formula here in Uganda, and we look forward to seeing the proposals for the Children's Book Project.
Kate Parry
Chair, UgCLA
Executive Director for East Africa, FAVL
4 February 2010
The workshop was funded by a grant promised by Pockets of Change (POC), a small donor organization in New York. POC has offered to fund the purchase of ten sets of children's books (valued at $200 each) to be distributed to libraries on the basis of proposals that they will be writing over the next month; then in August it will fund another workshop at which the recipient libraries will report on their experiences with the books. So the theme of the workshop was "Working with Children," and we prepared for it by purchasing the initial $200 set - actually, we found that after spending slightly less than that we had accumulated a representative, if not comprehensive, collection of the children's books available in Uganda. The exercise made us aware of two salient issues: most of the books are highly didactic, and there are very few picture books available (we are also aware that there are nowhere near enough books in local languages, but for this purpose we were focusing on English books since we don't know in which parts of the country the recipient libraries will be).
Altogether, we got about 100 volumes, including a range of traditional and modern story books as well as books with advice and information on health and social issues. The first session was spent in a World Café format, with the participants moving from one set of books to another and discussing them. Then we had two sessions on reading aloud with younger and with older children (our hosts at Kabubbu imported some children for the purpose), and the last session that day focused on displaying books for children to read by themselves and on setting up programs to encourage them to do so.
Next day there were presentations from four different member libraries about projects they had carried out to involve adults in reading with children, and the final session was about developing a proposal for using the books, to be presented to POC. The proposals must be written by Feb. 28. POC will help us to select the winners, and then we'll have a further meeting with the managers of these libraries to give them the books and to make sure that appropriate systems of evaluation and reporting are in place.
The workshop was better attended than ever, with more than forty libraries represented, and, as has become usual by now, everyone participated enthusiastically. Some of the members were new, for UgCLA has been joined by more than ten new libraries recently (bringing our total membership to 55), but the new people fit in well and some were especially active. Everyone stayed for the Annual General Meeting, which was the last event of the day, and there were not even any complaints when we announced a rise in our annual subscription from 20,000 to 30,000 Uganda shillings (from about $10 to $15). Somehow or other we seem to have hit on a winning formula here in Uganda, and we look forward to seeing the proposals for the Children's Book Project.
Kate Parry
Chair, UgCLA
Executive Director for East Africa, FAVL
4 February 2010
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