Textbooks & "Read a book, give a book"

Teaching Maths to P6

I was very excited to return to Aunt Susan’s and start helping out. We decided that I would teach English, Maths and Science to P5 & P6 (a very daunting prospect), as well as assisting with the nursery when possible.

Textbooks 

After the poor classroom buildings, mud floors and distinct lack of windows one of the problems I noticed was the serious shortage of textbooks. The school had just one copy of each meaning that the teachers seemed to spend a large proportion of their time simply copying the textbook onto the board for the children to either read or copy down themselves. This poses a particular issue when teaching English since reading is such a fundamental part of developing language skills. 

Me with the nursery

There were only 8-12 children in each of the classes at Aunt Susan’s so Ndali Ventures purchased enough English, Maths & Science textbooks for P4, P5 & P6 to have at least one between two. I hoped that this might improve their lessons and give the teachers (myself now included) more time and therefore a bit more scope for teaching. It took a while for the teachers to get used to it – weeks later I would still walk in to find the teacher at the front with a single textbook copying passages out on the board whilst the new textbooks remained untouched in the office! They got the message eventually though and I think they have since found them a very valuable resource and one which we would love to expand further.

“Read a book, give a book”

Students from Aunt Susan's reading at Loren's holiday club

The (limited) teaching experience I gained on my first trip certainly impressed upon me the great importance of children’s story books – I found them to be by far the most successful way of engaging the students and helping to improve their English. This was reinforced completely by the response I got from the students at Aunt Susan’s.

Guests who are staying at the Lodge often donate very generous gifts of stationery and other school supplies which they have brought from home. Although, this is of course greatly appreciated, there is actually very little in the way of school supplies which can’t be bought locally – and buying from local stationers and school suppliers has the added bonus of helping the local economy. However, something the schools don’t have and which are difficult and often expensive to buy within Uganda are children’s story books.

Nursery students & Aunt Susan with a book read to them
by Poppy on her trip in March 2012

As a result we have developed our “Read a book, give a book” venture – we are hoping to encourage guests to bring a copy of their favourite story book with them on their trip rather than other supplies. The idea is that the guests will then have the opportunity to read the story to the local children themselves, and afterwards the book will be added to the “Ndali Ventures Library” from which the schools will be able to borrow books.

Fortunate, one of Aunt
Susan's nursery students

We understand that a lot of people reading this won’t ever visit Uganda but may still want to help – we are currently investigating the possibilities for shipping a large quantity of books from the UK - but until then, I am heading out in the summer and will be able to take some with me. Please do get in touch if you are interested in helping.

Our ultimate aim is to have a fully functioning community library - in the meantime, we simply want to build a useful resource for our affiliated schools and hopefully improve the children’s English, as well as allowing guests to engage with the local community.