As many say, knowledge and wisdom acquired through education is the key to life. Going to school and learning is one of the major rights of all human beings. A number of kids in Kibera lack this important passage because of many reasons including lack of school fees due to poverty, lack of role models (aside from those immediately around them, role models followed through books and media); and even the harsh circumstances that they undergo in the slums. This is one of the biggest problem in the slum that Wale Wale as an organization purposes to contribute in eradicating.
In December last year, Wale Wale Kenya kick started a project to establish a public library within Kibera. The main aim of this library was to promote general literacy by promoting the reading culture, to increase general knowledge and academic knowledge of our members and other students who come by the library. With time we have also been able to accommodate kids who can’t go to school or those who go and get sent back home because of school fees to have a place to come and continue studying with the assistance of the Wale staff so that they can still be able to catch up with the rest of the students in school when they get back. Also, the library was set up as one of the main projects in the organization since the target group of the member in the organization are school going kids and it was a nice way to help the kids with the academics and give them a place they can do their homework after school.
At its idea phase, we thought of starting out with a total of 1000 books (including curriculum books for primary and high schools) and keep this number growing every year. Because of our belief in cooperation when it comes to development work Wale Wale Kenya thought to include a book drive/ campaign to be able to reach this number of books. We shared the concept of this project with The Swedish School in Nairobi, which we have had numerous collaborations with, and eight students offered to play a major role in running and collecting books for the book drive. In only 3 months they were able to raise about seven hundred books and in another three months they had been able to collect 1000 books! To say we were grateful and overwhelmed by their contribution would be an understatement. They have been a great inspiration to our members, staff and other students on community involvement and it is our great hope that they will keep the spirit of development and grow to be forces of change in the world. Now the library is packed with books and we have between 40 to 70 kids and youth coming to the center on a daily basis who have been having a much easier time to studying and expanding on their knowledge. We look forward to seeing the library project grow and we wish Frida Stangel, Hibo Yusuf, Terese Ackeberg, Emma Maritzen, Sofie Ernefors, Johanna Miskloczi and Elesine Naucler all the best! We thank you and hope to see you again some day. Happy Summer!
WALE WALE KENYA 