Book Drive By Wema Marandu

Music has always been my passion, and it has opened many doors for me including giving me an opportunity to play the flute with the Safaricom Youth Orchestra. Five months ago, I started tutoring young pupils to play the flute at AEF Reuben Primary school located in Mukuru slum. I have been volunteering alongside the Ghetto Classics team sponsored by the Art of Music Foundation.

While spending time on Saturdays at the school, I noticed that the school library stocked few story books which were mostly old. The librarian explained to me that the books were not appealing to the children, because they lacked local context and therefore were irrelevant to the kids. I observed that most students did not spend time in the library even though it was open over the weekend. Upon further investigation, I learnt that Reuben primary school has over 3000 students with each class having over 90 students. With the large number of students per class, the teachers struggle to cope and as a result many students suffer from poor reading skills.

This marked the start of my journey towards holding a book drive to buy locally relevant story books written in English and Kiswahili, which were simple and enjoyable to read. I am an avid reader, and this project is providing me with an opportunity to partner and collaborate with the school and other well-wishers to promote a reading culture amongst the students. One would ask: Why read? In my view, reading books can help these children living in the slums to become the best versions of themselves and even possibly motivate them to rise above their current disadvantaged circumstances.

Reading books can help the students to grow their creativity and imagination, improve grammar/writing skills and increase their knowledge. I aim to raise over 500 story books and so far, I have received help from different organisations including Jomo Kenyatta Foundation publishers, StoryMoja publishers, friends, family, and well-wishers. I also want to thank Crawford International School led by Ms Jenny, for supporting my project through the donation of phased - out IGCSE syllabus textbooks. These books will be extremely useful to high school students within the Mukuru slums who regularly visit the library to study over the holidays. The book drive will be held on Saturday 4th of December and all Crawfordians and especially senior students are welcome to join and engage in reading to the young students and motivating them to develop good reading habits.