Food for Thought...about Libraries and Learning

For a while now, I've tried to find the famous Osu Children's Library in Accra on my trips down there..but the directions that i had were vague. Embarassingly, as i now find out, the start point or the directions was a bar called the Honeysuckle which 'all PCV's know'...except me, so i could never get the start point and direction right. Address?-sure but that is of limited, make that very limited, use in Accra because most streets have either no name or no street signs. And City Maps are not very detailed, and there is no handy grid pattern like Manhattan, etc. Eventually by locating a building that showed up on Google maps and guessing where the Library might be from there, i used my first afternoon in Accra last week ( in town for the big 50th Anniversary of PC Volunteers arrival in Ghana) to determinedly strike out for the Library. A couple of tentative turns and some confusion but i found it at last.... and it is a good 30 minute hike to get there from the top of 'Oxford Street' in Osu.... but five minutes after it had closed for the day! No matter...it looks interesting, formed as it is by putting three big shipping containers together. And now i know how to find it.

So next day, after our PC celebrations in the plush surroundings of the US Ambassador's Residence, which turned out to be quite close to the Library, i headed back there.

The Library was started on a shoe-string by a Canadian lady in the mid-90's and has been very successful and the NGO now has many (how many..?) children's libraries in Ghana.

I spent a couple of hours there and was warmly greeted and treated.And it was VERY ENLIGHTENING AND THOUGHT PROVOKING!

Ever since i came back from my trip back home to the U.S. over 4th July, I've been struck by the fact that my time in Whuti is halfway done ..and that now i have to consolidate the work here and leverage it to really reach and help the community's children.

Putting together the Library and running it for the last ten or eleven months has obviously been a learning experience...for me and for the community. Initially, of course, i thought that once we opened the Library, children of all ages would come, would 'discover' the library and books and make it a regular part of their lives. And some did, and we're happy about that and the number of users has steadily grown and we have quite a few regulars. But many children don't come, aren't encouraged to come..and none of the schools, churches, or parents seem to be pushing them towards the Library.

That is addressable and with the start of the new school year, we will aggressively reach out to children via the schools and teachers and the churches..and via the not very activist Library Advisory committee. We should be able to get three or four times as many users as we had at the end of the school year.

But the other part of the resolution is to use the Library to actually help children...and simply having a nice place and lots of books isn't enough.

I can't radically change the literacy levels of the community's 1000+ students but we can use the Library to establish an alternative process (group-based remedial reading?) that will immediately improve literacy for some students and if we catch them young enough, we can really begin to solve the problem over time. The Library then needs to become a Learning Centre and we need to find older students who are willing to work with small groups of younger children to help them in their reading. That is doable but difficult and i should point out that it isn't easy for me to figure out how to put that together ...it surely involves pedagogical skills that i don't currently have (and that are so far from the teaching model in Whuti that there is no point in asking)

It was in this uncertain frame of mind...am i on the right track, can the Library be put on the right track?...that i visited the Osu Library.

I will try to attach some pictures but the first thing one notes is that it is quite small, has a free-form feel and uses covered outdoor space to extend its area. Small...it is built round three big blue shipping containers (..not unusual in Africa!) ...two end-to-end and one across the way from the 'other' two.

But it works..or seems to.

The Library is run by one Ghanaian lady, Joanna, who has a few volunteer helpers (high-school students?)...and it probably doesn't run without volunteers.

When i was there there were probably 20-25 children present..doing a variety of things and relatively few sitting reading.

There was one group of ten or twelve younger children, (aged 5-10? guessing. )who were sitting mostly on mats on the floor, 'working' with two young volunteers. They were practicing spelling with a book that they were clearly familiar with. It wasn't a sophisticated process but it was working and most children were eager to try to spell the words and success was greeted by rhythmic applause, which i've seen/heard before.

Then there were a couple of smaller groups in the other container and they were playing board games... Scrabble was one. These students were older but maybe 12-15..so JHS level? Hmmm.Scrabble..can't imagine Whuti-Srogboe children having that mental dexterity or confidence yet..but it would be a very strong improvement indicator...note to self...take a look at this..get Scrabble sent over plus other similar games.

Additionally there was another group or perhaps two working outside ...art and crafts, putting together ...emmm,stuff, you know, gluing bits of paper to a a sheet, etc..children's play stuff!!! Maybe it was finger painting?

The children seemed happy, were enthusiastic and were learning and gaining confidence.

Cute stuff...they had simple 8-12 piece wooden jigsaw puzzles made...African animals, a country map of Africa (wow!) to engage the 5- and 6- year olds. They had slots of educational stuff on the walls

And they publish their own books!!! There is a serious shortage of African/Ghanaian children's books here ...a shortage of titles that is. And so the Osu library has published their own. They have 20-30 titles, and they're really nicely produced..and cheap at 3-5 GH cedis each (so $2-$3.50) I bought 8 and the kids here really like them

Duh, yes, richard..to really teach children you need to engage their minds in a collaborative fashion. You need to make it fun..and supportive..etc, etc, etc

I sort of reeled away after a couple of hours...and headed over to 'Honeysuckle' to listen to 'my site sucks, they don't love me or let me love them ,etc '. In truth, after Romania, i can easily enough identify with this ...but i don't want to.

So now i'm back in Whuti..where over the last two weeks, 'we' have committed to renovate a space at the JHS as a Library (and possibly a Computer Lab) and inspired by generous donations, we've also committed to finding and renovating a space at the Whuti Primary as a Library also!!! Yea, don't ask....i don't know where the money will come from. Maybe a SPA grant?

But here's the thing...i somewhat despair of turning the Community Library into an interactive Learning Environment. The physical set-up is not conducive at all and i really don't know how to do it there....maybe... yet?

But with the two school spaces, we start from scratch and it may be less expensive in terms of set-up and furnishing to make them less-formal Learning Environments?

And the children deserve every little tweak that we can make!

so..no wonder my little head is spinning. Libraries 'R Us..sure, but where's the money going to come from?

all ideas cost money here..some cost less than others and are way more cost-effective...i think

Fun though and having three libraries here would be cool and get us noticed