Namanya Memorial community Library Uganda is located in Nansana, Katooke A, Wakiso district. The decision to start the library was inspired by their late father to help vulnerable communities and give back to the community. Starting the library was a way of honouring his legacy. Serving between 10 to 20 children in a day, the library welcomes everyone from the community. Libraries are most active in holidays and weekends with regular and un regular users.
“Community libraries are very important especially in communities with very low literacy levels” Amy Ampaire, Community Librarian at Namanya Memorial Community Library. Having community libraries is one way we can reach out to different communities in order to impart the literacy skills to them to contribute to fighting illiteracy. At Namanya community library they have story books for children, fiction for both teenage and adults, curriculum. They are in the process of adding educative games to the collection.
The major challenge in community libraries today is the lack of space, lack of training in library management and financial challenges to acquire skilled man power and run the library consistently. Imagine a community library with skilled personnel to carry out outreach with books, read to children, ability to communicate effectively and efficiently with local leaders, teachers and parents to encourage more library usage – the illiteracy gaps would easily be covered and more numbers reached through different reading programs.
Article by: Emmanuel Anguyo, Coordinator Community Libraries Association of Uganda