Information for Sponsors of International Project Partnerships

The Reading Club at the Benue State University Makurdi exists to inculcate a reading culture among remedial science students who are reluctant readers. Members of the reading club borrow books every Friday to read and return with a brief summary of the book. Meetings are held every two weeks during which members take part in shared reading, group discussions and read aloud.

The Reading Club has enabled science students who previously read only content area texts to read voraciously for pleasure. This has enhanced their reading engagement, improved their literacy skills and proficiency in English. The biggest challenge facing the club is lack of interesting books. The founder of the club buys most of the books and also borrows from colleagues, but the books are still far from being enough. Students wait for up to two weeks before they can take their turn to read a book

The organization seeks funding to purchase books for Nigerian adolescents and young adults (18-25 years).

The Reading Association of Nigeria (RAN) is an association of teachers and other education professionals committed to literacy empowerment across all social classes in Nigeria.

RAN is developing a versatile and interactive website that will allow RANmates and members of the public to get regular information about teacher training workshops, conferences, book and journals, etc. Such a sight will also afford the international community the opportunity to share in and get first hand information about RAN activities.

RAN seeks support to offset the cost of developing and hosting a website for one year (US$1,350) or two years ($1,760).

Libraries of Love, a nonprofit organization, collects books and prepares them with a spine label, pocket, and card. In February, the books are shipped to Uganda, Africa. A team travels to Uganda in June. They take a bare room, build bookshelves, place the books in library order, and then decorate the room to make it inviting. After the team leaves, I remain for a month to meet with classes and staff members to train them how to use their libraries. We now have six libraries serving over 9,000 children in public schools in Uganda. This year, we shipped 24,000 books and will create libraries for an additional 7,000 students.

Libraries of Love seeks books and funding. Shipping is the biggest expense and the organization would like to partner with a shipping company.

Baraka ECD Centre Programme in Western Kenya provides education, care, and support for orphans and vulnerable children. It is within the area worst hit by past election violence which saw many people lose lives including guardians of BARAKA ECD orphan children. The area is still witnessing tribal clashes. BARAKA ECD has become a home for children and displaced families. BARAKA ECD appeals for funds to:

CODE, the John Dau Foundation, and the International Book Bank are collaborating in ProjectLoveSudan to send much needed school supplies to south Sudan. Sponsors are sought to send Project Love student kits (containing a notebook, a pencil, a ruler, and an eraser) and teacher kits to schools being rebuilt after the region’s long civil war.

Big Books for Rwanda. Books are needed to replace those lost due to war in Shyira Primary School, Ruhengeri, Rwanda, a country still recovering from the brutal genocide of 1994. Class sizes are very large and materials scarce, yet the children of Shyira achool are hungry to learn. On a previous trip to this area, I took one big book, which is the only big book that there is for the little children. My translator and I translated it into the native language, Kinyarwanda, for them to keep.

The goal of my project is to take as many big books there as possible to encourage reading in the children’s native language. The greatest need is funds to purchase books as well as help with the costs of a translator. However, the greater goal is to establish an effective literacy program in the area. I am looking for reading material for primary school level students, in particular, big books that I can translate into the local language, Kinyarwanda, as well as read in English.

OperationREAD is an initiative under ProjectEducate, a nonprofit, nongovernmental organization designed to help improve educational standards and infrastructure in the southern African nation of Zambia. OperationREAD is designed to help provide reading materials to schools and libraries. Under OperationREAD, students are encouraged to read outside of the school curriculum as a way of broadening their horizons.

In 2007, we hope to introduce a literary competition which will be tied to a scholarship as an incentive to read. It is the first time a project of this magnitude will be implemented in Zambia’s Western province and we are excited about the possibilities it opens up to this community.

The Reading Association of Nigeria (RAN) seeks to establish RAN branches in all of Nigeria’s 36 states, and to facilitate establishment of reading associations across the continent.

RAN wishes to conduct a leadership conference to provide professional development to state leaders and help them acquire management skills and deeper knowledge of IRA practices. Nigeria, a country of 150 million people, has only a handful of operational state branches of RAN.

There is urgent need for local development of reading materials and collection/distribution of children’s books. RAN wishes to establish a children’s book development center equipped with printing capacity. Donations of used printing equipment could be useful, as could book drives and donations.

RAN seeks to conduct train-the-trainer workshops using a teacher training manual focused on critical thinking, developed by IRA, RAN, UBE, and the World Bank. Support for distributing the materials to schools around the continent is also sought.

RAN seeks start-up funding to establish a secretariat to support its work, and to provide secretarial and managerial support to RAN and other African reading associations. It is anticipated that, once established, the secretariat will be critical in soliciting local and regional support for ongoing RAN activities.

In the Caribbean

Literacy Connects Program: A collaborative project between classrooms in Jamaica, West Indies, and Chicago, Illinois, area schools.

The Literacy Connects Program is designed to increase collaboration and communication between the teachers of elementary and teachers of younger children, within each respective country, with joint activities to promote literacy. And together, they have connections with international partner schools. Communication and idea sharing will be enhanced through the joint ownership of the Global Exploration and Multicultural Adventures website. There will be a webmaster for technical support and to develop templates for teacher easy use. LC seeks to increase the range and variety of books and reading materials in both locations, but in particular in the Jamaican classrooms.

IRA committee chair seeks to re-establish the Reading Council in St. Thomas, USVI. Looking for interested teachers in St. Thomas to meet with me for this purpose. Need a teacher leader in St. Thomas to help plan the on-site meetings and contact other teachers.

Literacy professionals in Antigua, a country with a developing economy, seek to establish an IRA council. Local educators seek supplies for managerial and administrative purposes, and to begin creation of professional development programs.

The LIFE (Leadership Initiative for Eleuthera) Project, sponsored by IRA’s LEADER Special Interest Group together with the Haynes Library in Governors Harbor, Eleuthera, Bahamas, is an opportunity for IRA councils to participate in the Christmas Book Project to provide an age- and grade-appropriate book to every preschool and primary grade level child in Governors Harbor. Through your donation, books can be purchased at a discount, sent by November 1, and delivered to the children for Christmas. LEADER will recognize each council’s donation by mailing you documentation of your council’s participation in an international project.

In Oceania

Kiswahili Books Project: The Dunga Area School on the island of Unguja in Zanzibar, is seeking locally-produced books written in Kiswahili for the current, barely existent, school library. Funding is required for purchase of books from Tanzania.

Organizers of writing workshops in Niue seek a laminator, so that the nearly 100 texts produced in the workshops can be preserved from heat, humidity, and insects.

The Veiuto School, located in an economically depressed area of Suva, Fiji, seeks funds to purchase materials for the school library.

The South Pacific Rural Children’s Book Project is looking for support of indigenous publishing and book distribution. Donors can specify a country (Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, Samoa, Solomon Islanda, Tonga, Tokelau, Tuvalu, Vanuatu) where funds would be directed.

The Teaching and Learning for Peace Foundation applies for grants to provide free packs of peace-building books to libraries, schools, hospitals, and child care centers schools and community centres. The Foundation offers free story-sharing workshops and intends publishing a peace-building storytelling guide for teachers, librarians, and adults who work with children accompanied by a workshop series. The Foundation is seeking support from interested organizations.

The Reading and Writing for Critical Thinking project in the South Pacific seeks support for local participants in a “train the trainer” workshop model.

Latin America

Rural Literacy Project, RLP is a cultural exchange and literacy project focusing on Latin America. The program brings together school children and community members in the United States with those of rural Latin American communities. RLP wants to promote similar grassroots educational endeavors in classrooms around the country. The founder believes the grassroots method lends itself well to the elementary school teacher, who is typically in close contact with families and community members.

RLP seeks a forum to present RLP’s grassroots method of working for literacy and global educational equity to other educators. Invitations to visit and share the model used for fundraising and garnering community support are welcome.

In North America

“Keeping Books Alive” ships new and used books in containers internationally and domestically. There are about 25,000 books per container.

“Keeping Books Alive” requests partial or full funding for shipments and seeks volunteers in the Annapolis, Maryland, USA area.

Individuals interested in supporting literacy development projects in countries with developing economies should consider IRA’s Developing Country Literacy Project Support Fund.