The library in Boni has been closed for almost a year now. The office of the mayor (the local rural council) had been unable to agree over how to supervise and pay the librarian. The cost is rather small, about $1,500 per year, but some local governments are unwilling to allocate any amount to support their local libraries. They justify this refusal in a variety of ways: they claim they are not allowed, legally, to hire a librarians; they have no extra budget for a library; they have no ability to supervise a librarian; the librarian is too old. The list of excuses goes on, and sometimes is incoherent. The team often gets a sense that the mayor and his staff are negotiating with us: “We know that you, FAVL, want the library open, so how much are you willing to pay us to get us to approve opening it?” We do not play that game.
The new mayor of Boni, Sinkondo Clément, fortunately is very interested in re-opening the library, and is working well with the FAVL team. Here in the photo is the mayor and the secretary-general of the commune, and FAVL representative Sanou Dounko (at right), after a productive meeting a couple of weeks ago.
Dans le cadre de la promotion de la lecture, le C.M.H dont le rôle essentiel est de produire et éditer des œuvres locales et éducatives pour les tout petits, a repris avec beaucoup de détermination ses activités qui ne sont pas moins négligeables. Qui dit lecture, doit d’abord parler d’écriture : les deux sont indissociables, car la culture de la lecture passe nécessairement par celle de l’écriture. Dans cette veine, Sieni Dieudonné, un de nos assistant program officer s’évertue depuis maintenant deux mois à imaginer une série de thèmes éducatifs qu’il a écrits à l’adresse cette frange jeune constituant le potentiel de lecteurs par excellence. Il vous présente ici un échantillon de ce qu’il a déjà fait et qu’il compte poursuivre les semaines à venir.
