Developed in partnership with Zanzibar Library Service (ZLS) in June 2010, the Zanzibar book box project has provided ten primary schools in the poorest district of Zanzibar with accessible, compact and portable libraries.
Despite a strengthening tourism industry in Zanzibar, over 50% of the population continues to live on less than US$1 a day. The North A District was chosen to initially pilot the ‘Library in a Box’ project as less than 20% of schools there had a library.
Pale Primary School, Zanzibar
Teachers from each of the ten participating schools attended two training workshops which included sessions on basic librarianship, lending books to library users, and tips on story telling and reading promotion in the classroom. The schools then each received their library in a box which contained books in English from Book Aid International, along with books in Swahili purchased from a range of local publishers.
On visiting some of the participating schools in February 2011, Karen Sharkey, Book Aid International’s Programme Development librarian was told by Sichana Haji Foum, Director of ZLS:
“The project is very helpful for our children because here in Zanzibar the reading culture is a problem for us. Children aren’t used to reading books but I think this book box project is changing that. I think it is very good for our children. Many children visit the library for the first time when they reach O level. In primary schools children don’t even know what the word library means. But by bringing book box libraries into schools, we can reduce this gap. I’d be very happy for book boxes to be extended to all of Zanzibar.”
Following the success of this project in year one, we have now secured funding to provide a further ten schools in Zanzibar each with a library in a box in 2011.
