Library Books Project
Report On The Adaklu Trip From The 23rd To 26th Of Jan 2019
This is the account of our partnership with the ‘’Shelf The Books Project’’ team from Accra and Kumasi which comprised mostly of students and past volunteers of ICS VSO. Their focus was gathering books to donate to schools.
we numbered seven to the project site.
With Needbe Foundation taking the lead, the main aim of the project was to perform surveys in some selected schools to which books could be donated in June 2019. Needbe Foundation did the school selection in November 2018 in the Adaklu district in the Volta region of ghana.
On the day of our arrival in the community, we were unable to work, because it was already dark so we had downtime and rested for the next day. We planned how to execute our work here successfully that day. We had selected two schools earlier but it turned out that we were not able to lodge in the proposed community where the school was in so we lodged in another nearby village that we could even walk to our selected community for our surveys.
The next day we visited the first school; Adaklu Anfoe E.P Primary school. At this school, fortunately, they had a library but not enough books on the shelves. We had a dialogue with their headteacher and assistant to inquire what kind of books they would prefer we bring and told us.
Next, we came home, picked the items we bought to paint a shelve at Adaklu Waya that we had started last year as a community library project to paint after surveying the other school in Waya. We walked about 2 miles to Waya. On our way we made a stop at The Kings’ Perseverance Academy; the only private school around to see their situation of a library as well. They had no library but had a place they kept books that could be transformed into a library. We interacted with the teacher in charge and proceeded to Waya.
At Waya E.P Primary and Junior High school, they had no library too but had a room that could be transformed into a library. We meet the headteachers and they took us to see the room. They had lots of books packed down in the room but we found out that they were redundant; not the standard of the pupils and don’t even meet the curriculum in Africa. They were old books shipped from the US.
Later in the day, we went to paint the shelf for our community library project. This project looks at providing at least a shelf packed with about 300 – 500 books for space in any place of convenience we can have books for people to access. So this shelve was in a Printing and photocopy shop in the middle Waya owned by a teacher. We left the shelf to dry overnight.
On the next day 25th, we made an early trip with a tricycle with three bags of clothes we brought to donate to a hinterland village called Adaklu Seva where it is believed some dreadlocked children were born with it from birth from one family or clan. From Anfoe we passed through Waya and journeyed about 5 kilometres to the village as we had breakfast on the tricycle. According to the village, it was a god that sent the children. These children attend school with their locks just as it is. We were there as early as half 7 am. At our arrival, we went into the village square but the villagers directed us to go to the school compound where the villages and the children will meet us so we proceeded there. Around 8 am the villages were set to have interactions with us, we let known the purpose of our visit and we shared the clothes with the children and the adults. Afterwards, we took a photo with all of them present that day and we departed.
On our journey back, we stopped at Waya to check if the shelf had dried to shelve the books. It was, we positioned it into the corner we are given at the shop and we arranged the books in. we took an account of the names of the books, their authors and the total sum and left to Anfoe. The shelf was inaugurated in February and then it was opened to the community for full access anytime the shop is opened.
The “Shelve The Books” project team departed from the district on the 26th to their various destinations in Accra and Kumasi.
