Let the Children Read: Kauzhumba Primary School Library Project

Kauzhumba Primary School is situated in Nyaminyami Rural District, Zimbabwe. It lacks a library structure. This limits equal access to textbooks and learning materials crucial for supporting the school’s work of literacy and education. The lack of a library at the school makes everyday academic life difficult, especially in relation to borrowing books for homework and revision. This also prevents potential donors from supporting the school with books if there is insufficient storage space. Since its establishment in 1992, Kauzhumba school’s Grade 7 pass rate has been below 8%. I strongly believe that a library will contribute to the improvement of the teaching and learning environment of the learners crucial for helping the school to achieve good pass rates.

We aim to construct a library (3.3m x 10m) consisting of a storeroom and a space where learners and their teachers can read and borrow books to develop the skills of searching for information on their own. This will help them to develop a problem-solving and active approach to learning. A plan for the library has been drawn. The local community has provided local materials, including bricks, stones and sand, and it will also provide labor. The school has in stock the following materials, deformed bars 10mm x 60, window panes, plastic paper, termite poison, glass cutter and reinforcement bars. We need materials including cement, IBR sheets, brick force and paint as well as payment for the builder.

A Zimbabwean in the diaspora recently secured funding from the Bremen Fund for Small-Scale Development Projects in the Global South (BreGlob), which will be used for the construction of the library storeroom as the funds are insufficient for the construction of the whole library building. We need more funding to complete the library. We are in contact with an Australian-based NGO, Aussie Books for Zim who have shown interest in donating books for the school after the library has been built.

• It will empower 409 students at Kauzhumba school with knowledge and the confidence to help shape the world they live in. It will also improve literacy in the disadvantaged Kauzhumba community.
• Since Kauzhumba school does not have a secure storage facility for exam papers, it does not qualify as a centre for national examinations. As a result, grade seven pupils walk some 14 kilometers each year to sit for their national exams at Marembera primary school. However, this distance is too much for the students. Not only does this take a lot of energy, but it can also be extremely dangerous as learners are also be exposed to risks including abuses and dangers from marauding wildlife along the way to and from Marembera Primary School. The library storeroom will provide excellent storage for exam papers crucial for the school to be registered as an exam centre allowing students to write exams at the school.
• All staff can improve their teaching by using stock from the library.

We will use the grant to purchase building materials, including IBR sheets, cement, payment of transport cost and builder, brickforce and window frames.