From Paul Ayutoliya: This is an update of the happenings in the three CESRUD/FAVL Ghana community libraries. Basic schools resumed schools on the 8th of May 2018, many of the pupils spent this particular day in the respective libraries as there are not always serious academic work on the first week of reopening schools in most schools in Ghana especially the rural villages like ours. The first day activities in our respective libraries was characterized by story books reading, games and all kinds of interactions on what pupils were engaged in during the brief vacation period. Some of the story books pupils read among others includes the Cats and Dog Series by Elke and Rene Leisink, Trinity High students in crime by CNN Lokko, Once Upon A Time In Ghana II by Anna Cottrell and Agbotadua Togbi Kumassah in the Sumbrungu Community Library, at the Sherigu Library, patrons read among others Kente for a King by Angela Christian, Little stories for Little Ears, My Grandfather is a Magician by Ifeoma Onyefulu, the usual Fati Series by Kathy Knowles, Adventure of the Homo-Twins by E.J. Hevi, All About Ama and…., at the Gowrie library, library users also read the following books among others; Peter Wish, Amoako and the Forest, Emeka’s Gift, Welcome Dede.
At the Gowrie Kunkua Community Library, I read with library users on the story of Peter Wish by Kathy Knowles. At the Sumbrungu Community Library, I am yet to hold a major group reading with patrons, what I do currently is read with the little children individually from time to time on two, three, four and five letter words. The words are written with pictures of say Refrigerator, Table, Car, pen, computer and more. Is sometimes interesting, some the children are unable to pronounce the word but as soon as you showed them the picture, then they quickly mention the name but then there are a lot of individual reading, group reading with the librarians, games and a whole lot fun activities. In fact, the daily and night sessions in the library, the number of users in just keep increasing.
Apart from these activities and others in the respective libraries, I visit the surrounding schools talking to pupils or students on the importance of library usage. At times, we (one of the librarians perhaps and myself) are normally given time to share a story with the pupils. In concluding this report, performance in the libraries are going on well, in the coming days we hoping for more improvement.