Students, volunteers, and teachers at Navunisea Primary School (NDS) have benefitted hugely from the addition of the library in 2014. It provides a space where one-on-one work, literacy groups, planning and training can take place. As well as housing reading resources and teaching materials! Now we are using your donations to connect the library to the electricity supply.
Why do we need electricity at the library?
Now that the project is really taking shape as a focused literacy programme, a large part of our work entails creating resources to support literacy and phonics work which is easy to understand and deliver for volunteers. These resources mean that volunteers with little teaching experience can have a meaningful impact in school.
Producing consistently high-quality resources requires the use of laptops in order to research and create materials. Long term volunteers, or those with special expertise, are identified by staff to further develop the project according to its core objectives. However, currently they can’t work on the project, instead they head back to base so that they can use IT equipment, connected to the electricity supply.
This makes it difficult to ensure that they are maintaining important contact time with pupils and the school and splits the team up. It means that they are not with NDS project staff and, therefore, unable to have guidance and input from those who know the project best.
During 2015, NDS staff have also become involved in the delivery of professional development to teachers in the district. This is a fundamental factor in making our project sustainable by sharing knowledge and best practice for a long-term impact. Training sessions have had to take place in the school office or unsuitable classroom spaces in order to access electricity.
In addition, Silana is fast becoming a hub for community development, education and awareness related to our core objectives in the district. The ability to host workshops for adult education, community health and women’s empowerment at our library would be both practical and would further showcase our unique partnership with this community and school.
Thank you for your donations, which make improvements like this possible. We can’t wait for power to be installed!
