KITENGESA COMMUNITY LIBRARY

Newsletter

March 2014

Dear Friends:

It is nearly fifteen years since Emmanuel Mawanda and I decided to set up a community library near the trading center of

Kitengesa in Masaka District, Uganda. The library consisted at first of a box containing about 150 books, but in 2002 it grew into a

building and in 2004 sprouted solar panels and lights. By 2009 we had a bigger, three-roomed building, which we opened formally in

2012, complete with a computer center and a community hall –

and a collection of about 4000 books.

The physical growth of the library has been remark-

able, but more important is the expanding range of services that

we offer. To begin with we just lent books to the students at the

secondary school that Mawanda founded, but with a building

we could offer a space where they could read and textbooks and

reference books for them and their teachers to study. In 2004

we began an adult literacy class, which has since evolved into a

family literacy project, and we initiated a library scholarship

scheme, paying students’ school fees in return for their help in

the library. With the library scholars’ help, we began working in

2005 to attract primary school children; and now that we have the hall we can entertain whole classes of sixty children at a time. Since

2011 we have run a health reading camp every year, and from that we have developed an ac-

tive youth leadership group. In 2012 we reached out to the neighboring school for the deaf; its

students come regularly now to the library, we have a deaf library scholar, and through the

library’s Sign Language Club many hearing library users have learned how to talk to the deaf

ones. We’ve had a newspaper club, a writers’ club, workshops for teachers, computer classes –

once there is a library, the possibilities for promoting literacy are endless.

That fateful first box of books,

and the start of the first construction.

The assistant librarian talking to

one of the deaf students.

Please make your check out to FAVL (Friends of African Village Libraries) and mail to: FAVL, P.O. Box 90533, San Jose, CA 95109-3533.

To tell us how you’d like us to use your donation, write “Kitengesa Community Library”: and/or “UgCLA” on the memo line of the check.

But it’s not only about literacy. One of the most exciting things about the

Kitengesa Community Library is the number of social and economic activities that

have spun off from it. As soon as we got solar electricity we began charging people’s

cell phones. At the same time a visitor to the library initiated a tree planting project,

employing boys from Mawanda’s school; that project still raises its seedlings in the

library compound, supervised by the first of our library scholars. Another visitor

helped the women who attended the literacy class to form themselves into a microfi-

nance group, and each member began a small project – some chickens for one, a cow

for another, one or two goats or pigs for another.

The women then acquired a tent and chairs, which they rent out, and some

of them have learned how to make beads and other craft goods that they sell. In Janu-

ary we invited all the “library ladies” to tea, and now they want to learn how to make

cakes for sale – so I’ll be giving them lessons when I get back in June. Another couple

of visitors, after research done at the library demonstrated the need, worked at

Kitengesa to develop a sanitary towel that could be washed and re-used and sold in

discreet and affordable packets – AfriPads (see http://afripads.com). They are now

selling thousands of packets, manufacturing them in our old library building and

employing sixty local people. Fi-

nally, Dan Ahimbisibwe, our li-

brarian since 2002, now has a Mas-

ter’s degree in Development Stud-

ies and is managing a development

project in a nearby village. He can do so while still running the library because two of

our former library scholars are working as his assistant librarians. The library is sup-

porting their further education, and so we continue to build more capacity for the

library and the community.

There’s still another chapter to the story. By 2006 I had learned there were

other community libraries in Uganda, and with a number of friends began looking for

a way to bring them together in a network. The Uganda Community Libraries Association (UgCLA – www.ugcla.org) was founded in

2007 and has grown dramatically. At present it has 41 paid-up members distributed all over the country. The Kitengesa Community

Library is one of its leaders, and so the ideas we develop and the knowledge we accumulate can be spread through conferences and

workshops to libraries across Uganda.

That initial box of books cost me about $100, and it’s hard to imagine a more productive

investment. But I have been far from the only investor: the growth I’ve described has been made

possible by the generous donations of friends in the United States and elsewhere. We’ve worked

hard to ensure that every $100 – or $500, or $50 – that is donated bears fruit, in children reading,

women raising their incomes, and students learning how to contribute to their communities.

Friends of African Village libraries helps us to raise and manage these funds (see www.favl.org, and

search for “Uganda” in the blog). We are grateful to FAVL and still more to all of you for your gen-

erosity. Thank you.

Kate Parry

The tree seedlings.

Making crafts, raising cows, renting chairs.

The library ladies take tea together.

Afripads girls busily at work.

And it all began with a few books....