| dc.description.abstract | Reading is a key evidence based intervention for child development besides play
and home visiting that enhances language and vocabulary acquisition.
However, literacy acquisition for quality education remains a threat to global
development. Such is not only attributed to absence of public or community
libraries that are the key gatekeepers to reading; but this situation is worsened
by their none-existence, mismanagement and absence of reading initiative. In
partnership with Children International in Uganda, Makerere University, East
African School of Library and Information Science (EASLIS) and, other
stakeholders; a community reading programme was initiated in the slum
communities of Kampala. This was intended to institutionalize community
library services to serve the urban poor children deprived of the right to access
information (reading materials) given the environment and their settlement
patterns. Using applied research, participant observation, document review and
reflective community meetings data was collected about this programme. The
focus was on primary activities such as reading literacy programme in the
urban poor communities of Kampala, i.e. 8 reading tents, 2 community and 4
mobile libraries were established. In this partnership 10 university volunteers
were trained and approximately 1543 children were reached. Peer to peer
mentorship, exchange visits and learning were initiated; increased school
attendance and enrolment were realised and partner involvement with
organisations like Kampala Capital City Authority, National Library of Uganda
was started for sustainability of the programme.
This paper will present experiences, lesson learnt and challenges in partnership
to institutionalize community libraries for reading in the urban poor
communities of Kampala. | |
