By: Nyima Sillah
In their quest to promote a culture of reading, ChildFund The Gambia on Friday donated three 40foot containers of textbooks worth $1,083,840.00 to Schools in The Gambia.
The event which took place at the ChildFund office in Kanifing was funded by Books for Africa, a non-governmental organization, and the container of the books was handed over to the Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education (MoBSE) for onward distribution to schools across the country.
Musukuta Komma Bah, the Country Director ChildFund The Gambia said working with global donors, publishers and African partners, Book for Africa remains the largest shipper of donated books and library books on the African continent.
She said the books range from early childhood development centers where they can be used at the primary, secondary, tertiary, and up to college levels and were selected in close consultation with the Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education, especially the participation of red two.
“The books will be distributed to schools, some will go to the communities so that children during the holidays will get into the habit of reading, get into the habit of practicing some numerical challenges and this way we hope they will be able to improve their numeracy and literacy skills. Some children still want to read but cannot find the book that they want to read and you can agree with me that the government cannot provide everything,” she said.
Lamin Fatajo, Regional Directorate MoBSE, applauded ChildFund for their continuous intervention in the course to advertise children’s literacy in the country, which is a key indicator of education in student textbooks.
He said, “If you want to project the future of any country, go to the school, the environment of the school in terms of learning behavior and everything shows what the future hold for the country and contributing to reading means we are contributing to the development which is going to contribute to the production of the actual human capital that we need for this country.”
Board Member of Ding Ding Yiriwa Federation Alhagie Janneh highlighted the important role ChildFund continues to play in complementing the government’s effort with vital tertiary books, while also supporting the Gambia college.