They say if you want to hide something from an African, write it in books. Rotary is determined to change this perception by equipping the young and old in the society through scholarly progress.
To mark the World Library Day last week, the Rotary Club of Nairobi East donated books to St John School Korogocho Community Library.
President Nana Wanjau explained “The Rotary Club of Nairobi East has been supporting St John School and Library for over ten years. We have been very involved in stocking the library and are now working towards finding a partner who can training the dedicated librarians. The library is a centre where anybody within the vicinity can access the facility and benefit from the books already bought and arranged in the library”.
The library day held at the same venue on July 24 was a clear manifestation of the hunger for knowledge students in the slums have. There was an overwhelming attendance of more than 1,000 students. They also have the performance improvement programme (PIP). At the beginning of the year, they go into the school to challenge and motivate both the students and teachers to performance better. Together, they set goals for the year in each subject and discipline. We also define the awards in each category. Academically, this has seen improvement and increased the level of performance across the subjects and the morale amongst the teachers.
“ Additionally we give education scholarships to students from St John Korogocho to high school and University. Besides the scholarship, we also have a mentoring programme for our scholarship students. We are now embarking on a new project of equipping the computer lab. We are looking for partners to help us implement this project,” said Wanjau.
To raise more money for their intiative to roll out of more community libraries, they have organised a fundraising climb to Mt Kilimanjaro. As Rotarians, they will attempt to break the Guinness World Record for being the first crew to ever take more than a hundred people to the top of a mountain. The launch for the climb, which is open to the public, will be held this Saturday at Arboretum in Nairobi.