Bwenzi Buku

Reading is an important skill in education as much as in life. The academicians believe that learners must be able to read at a tender age. However, that is not the case in most of African countries as there's a large number of learners in class and shortage of teachers. It is difficult for the learners to get support from the teachers. This doesn't only affect their learning but also the way they feel about school. This fuels high dropout rate and unsuccessful education experience. A research conducted by National Reading Program, almost 96% of learners in year 4 don't know how to read and write. This dictates that there's a bigger challenge as the education standards stipulates that learners must be able to read as early as possible. This doesn't only cripple the education Standard only but it also risks the development of the communities. Statistics show that most environmental degradation activities are engineered by the less educated as they don't have information about environment. In this digital age we are in, information is being spread via media that require reading and this is skipped as the community members don't know how to read and write. This in turn frustrates the global efforts in addressing poverty.

Bwenzi Buku is a solution that could try to solve this challenge to undeserved learners. Bwenzi means friend and Buku means a Book. It is a process of getting friendship through a book. Books with simpler characters will be given to learners when they'll be supporting each other at home. This will supplement the teachers efforts. The activities will be easy to do and parents will be involved in playing games in the book. It doesn't require them to be readers but the books will have photos depicting the letter names, words, sentences and stories. By and by the learners will be familiar with the content. Each community will choose a day where they are going to be having a reading fare once a week. This will help learners to exchange ideas and probably extend the friendship through the books.

This solution targets the undeserved learners in the rural areas in African Countries. They're undeserved because they don't know how to read and they are heading into poverty that can hardly be eradicated. Education is a key to the knowledge gap between the average earners and the poor. As much as literacy rate improves, there will be an improvement in development; living standards.

Our team is the right team because it has people with experience in working with the community. In fact, this was tested during the pandemic that forced the closure of schools. We sent messages to traditional leaders to sensitize people on how their children can still be involved in school activities. The people are being engaged in the development of the solution as they are made to understand how literacy can improve their livelihoods. The design of the solution requires books that will be safeguarded by a local leader chosen by members of the community. Parents are part of the implementation as they'll be involved in supporting the learners. It involves people from all the level as Local leaders will be the backbone of the solution

We need more books to reach more students as well as provide a variety that will make learners interested. We also need shelters that can help during community reading fares

Recently, we have seen how organizations have been coming in with an aim supporting education. There has been many failed projects because they implement the projects in a situation where some projects have already fallen apart. Bwenzi Buku seeks to engage the community in literacy. So this is a great catalyst as it involves the grassroots. It is more directed in reaching out to the marginalized and undeserved learners

Every learner must be able able to read by the end of the first year of their school; this will be achieved by helping them have times with books with free instructions far from the structured lessons.

While for the next five years, we hope to see a developed community where knowledge gap is narrowed to enable equal distribution of resources as some people are oppressed because they don't really have information about development of their area.

The number of literate learners is increasing as most learners that are under the project are showing improvement in their classroom activities. From the 783 learners, only a few could read, 5% but after the project 30% of learners shows improvement

We strongly involve the community members as this develops sense of ownership while creating a room for sustainability. We engage everyone in decision making on how best we can distribute items, monitor the learners, conduct reading fares and storage of books and other important records. We conduct constant surveys to find out if the activities are having impact and decisions are made based on the data collected. This helps in creating ideas that align with the expectations and needs of the community

Currently we use SMS to collect data from lead parents. It is so as SMS service is cheaper and easy to access in most rural areas

We engage teachers in identifying the levels of reading level as well as informing us on the specific learning needs of other learners. We sensitize people on the equality that exists between males and females as we are working in areas where gender knowledge isn't evenly distributed. We bring role models to help people understand that a disability isn't inability.

We conduct fundraising events that generate income to support activities. When there's some more funds left, the needy learners are supported by being given school uniform, exercise books and writing materials. 

We offer trainings to people who pay a little money that is used to support the course.

We were able to raise funds that we used to procure some books through a training that involved music lessons, videography and graphic designing