Making the reading culture a norm in Namibia
The United Nations Information Centre (UNIC) in Windhoek, handed over a book donation to the Ministry of Education, Arts and Culture (MoEAC) through the Namibia Library and Archive Service (NLAS) earlier this month.
The Centre donated books valued at N$12000 and the collection includes a variety of fiction and non-fiction books.
The Ministry of Education embarked on a drive to solicit the support of the private sector and partners to acquire books and UNIC Windhoek heeded the call in support of the national reading campaign, One Child, One Book.
Namutenya Hamwaalwa, Deputy Director, National Library and Archive Service said the reading campaign is a brand new project that the Directorate of Namibia Library and Archives Service through school library service is introducing.
“We aim to expand and deepen an appreciation of books and engage the whole local community to contribute towards fostering a reading culture in our primary schools, promote reading to support the national class reading period, fight illiteracy and seek to bring our learners, teachers and parents to a realisation of the importance of reading for personal advancement and national development and to capacitate language subject advisors, regional librarians, school librarians and teachers on how to conduct the reading period activities,” she explained.
She said that UNIC’s contribution to the School libraries project is highly valuable as School libraries are fundamental to education, offering opportunities for experiences in creating and using information for knowledge, understanding, imagination and enjoyment.
“Those are key concepts to the people who are concerned with the provision of quality education to all learners, which in itself quantifies the importance of this donation,” she added.
At the handover of the books, Anthea Basson, Head of UNIC Windhoek said an early reading culture fosters lifelong learning and enables children to grow into innovative citizens and commended the Ministry and NLAS for their commitment to enhancing literacy and addressing the low reading proficiency in the country.
Sarah Negumbo, Director of the National Library and Archive Service said their role as Libraries is to promote the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to the public.
“We are happy today that our recipients, through these donated books will help create an awareness about the SDGs among the young learners,” she added.
