Warren Halford was having a leisurely read of a community newspaper. Being in the world of books, his eye was caught by an item about a young township school teacher frustrated by the lack of library facilities for her students. She had taken up the challenge to stimulate a love for reading and started a book club which was gaining traction. Warren read that she had previously headed up one of The Domino Foundation’s educational programmes and so he got in touch with Nicky Walton, Domino’s Education Co-ordinator. The upshot of that was an initial donation of 600 relevant, colourful fiction and non-fiction books donated by Warren’s company, Everybody’s Books where he is Managing Director. “Spending time with Nicky’s team, I heard about their collaboration with The LEARN Project whose goal is to equip underserved schools with reading books and to create sustainable libraries and classroom book corners.” Hearing that the basic minimum number of books to launch a library project is 1200. Warren wasted no time in committing to donate the balance of another 600 volumes. And so, the initiative to put in place the building blocks for Inanda Primary School’s library had begun.
Mr Makhosonke Ngubane, Inanda’s deputy principal, has been desperate this support and submitted an application to The Learn Project last year: “We are so excited that this project is beginning.” Much has yet to done before those initial 1200 books make their way to the shelves: the school room which has been proposed as the venue for the library has a roof which leaks; books will have to be covered and coded into the library system; walls need painting, flooring laid and shelving installed to turn it into a suitable space…and other funders will have to come on board to turn it into somewhere which nurtures the love of reading and the opening of doors for the learners at Inanda Primary because of an greatly enhanced worldview that books bring.
Anyone who is keen to be part of this initiative to establish a well-functioning library at the school can contact Nicky on 031 110 7030 0r at education @ domino.org .za. “And, of course,” enthused Nicky, “we will be very happy to receive many more appropriate books in good condition to really make this library fly!”
