New Project Alert: Reading Club

Medical volunteer Donna telling the boys about the
magic of reading and how to respect the library.

After months of deliveries, cleaning and organising, on April 23rd we finally opened the container for use by the Khula Afterschool Club.

Although the container is not fully finished (we still need to organise some of the books, move around some of the shelves and sort some of the multiple copies of adult novels), we decided to have a handful of our learners from Khula participate in our very first Reading Club.

We chose some of the oldest kids present that afternoon at Senzokuhle, and ended up with eight boys taking the walk over to the Induna's office, where the library now stands.

Before anyone entered the container, medical volunteer Donna gave everyone a speech about the magic of books, and how they can take a reader to far-away places and teach them many things. Most importantly, Donna discussed with the boys how they need to respect the books in the library so that others can have magical experiences, too. As a result, the boys were very careful and gentle with the contents of the library - something we hope to foster with later groups.

Community volunteer Menke (in the
background) and community coordinator
Shwele reading with some of the boys. 

Ranging from grades eight to five, two learners were paired with each of our volunteers and picked books off the shelves. For the mostpart the boys wanted to learn about the world, and picked non-fiction books from one section of the library. They learned about birds, why penguins don't fly and about traditional celebrations all around the world, just to name a few!

We were all pleasantly surprised at just how well some of the boys read, and by choosing books at their reading level they were able to read to each other with just a little encouragement from the volunteers. To help the boys with reading retention, the volunteers asked questions about the subjects that had been read and discussed with the learners.

All in all, a wonderful afternoon was had by everyone and although the Reading Club only lasted about half an hour because the boys had to go eat their dinner, we're eager to get back into the container with more of the Afterschool Club kids to show them just how fun reading can be!