Since setting up and handing over the library to Hope Primary there have been several hiccups which delayed the library being opened to the students. Shortly after we returned to Nairobi, the principal of Hope Primary resigned and went back to South Sudan. This is before our partner, LWF, was even able to hand over the keys (perhaps for the better). The principal’s resignation was not ideal, as we had focused on him for a lot of the training, including the I.T. training component of the library.
A new principal was hired, and then briefed by LWF about the management of the library (as they had been briefed by us when we did the setup). By this time, the teacher who was assigned to help run the library, who also attended all of the training we gave, had forgotten his training and so couldn’t operate the computer checkout system. This meant that no books could be borrowed. So instead of class teachers checking out 100 books for a class lesson, students were squeezing into the little 40 foot container which was the only place they were allowed to access the books. The capacity of the container is 30 kids, and this is a squeeze. Not ideal for a school of over 5000 students.
We are addressing this issue now, and doing as much training over the phone as possible until we are able to travel back to Kakuma to do a physical checkup and see how things are going. The photos shown in this post were sent to us by the school of the students in the library. What a joy to see it being used!