Books bring smiles to rural schools

THE gravel road to isiKhuthali Primary School, inland from Margate, is rutted and bumpy but Meg Dickson and her daughter, Jenny Baker, of Sithanda ukufunda say it is in better condition than it was last year.

We are driving in Meg’s private family car, a vehicle that takes quite a beating. It is used to ferry some 5 000 books, sorted into age-appropriate boxes of reading matter, along a network of bad roads to 15 primary and three high schools scattered all over the rural areas between Port Shepstone and Port Edward.

Meg and Jenny, both trained teachers, are the founders of Sithanda ukufunda, a mobile library service to schools and a non-government organisation that they and three other board members run on a purely voluntary basis. A new school term is a busy time for the mother and daughter team as the two of them spend most their mornings rushing around delivering their precious cargo to the different schools. They take a bit of a break mid-term then it is time to return to all the schools to collect the boxes and prepare to rotate them at the beginning of the next term. They often clock up more than 1 000km per term.

I am accompanying them on their rounds today. They have a fairly relaxed schedule as they are only visiting two schools. First on the list is isiKhuthali Primary, a small, neat but poorly equipped school whose principal is delighted to take delivery of three boxes of books. It’s the grade 2, 4 and 6 pupils’ turn to have boxes of wonderful story books, beautifully illustrated and written in both English and Zulu, at their disposal to read in their classroom.

We don’t stay long. It is a busy day at school as some teachers are at a workshop. All the same, the books are gratefully received. Grade 2 teacher Abigail Thango tells me how much she is looking forward to letting her pupils enjoy some happy reading times. She is thrilled to see some books written in isiZulu and calls one of her pupils, Zolani Majola, to show us how well he can read in his home language. Later, Meg explains to me that children are taught in their mother tongue for the first few years at primary school. For this reason and to foster a love of reading in the very young, recent donations of isiZulu books have been received with delight.

We bounce along a really bad road to our next destination, Jenny expertly dodging the potholes. She agrees she would make a pretty good rally driver, A pretty garden enhances the neat-as-a-pin Nositha Primary School but all is not as good as it looks. Principal Amos Mzobe and admin clerk Bheko Shozi come out to meet us and to organise helpers to take the boxes of books to the designated classrooms. They take me to see the particularly crowded grade 4 classroom where a teacher is maintaining admirable order and carefully checking the work of her 86 pupils. They are uncomfortably crammed three-per-desk into the small space available but they are happy, smiling children who seem eager to learn.

It is sobering to see teaching actually taking place in such adverse conditions and it makes me realise just how incredibly valuable a box of beautiful books must be in a school that is deprived of so much of what urban schools take for granted.

As we say farewell to the teachers and pupils the bell rings for break. There is suddenly a small commotion in the playground near where Jenny has parked Meg’s long suffering car. A little boy with a box of books is at the centre of the disturbance. He is one of the helpers carrying the Sithanda ukufunda boxes to their designated classrooms and his schoolmates have gathered around excitedly to see what new treasures Meg and Jenny have brought them this term. Their smiling faces are a fitting farewell as we leave to return to town. My admiration for Jenny and Meg knows no bounds.

They and their fellow volunteers will have a particularly busy time this year as they are expanding their mobile library services into the needy Eastern Cape. They would appreciate any sort of help they can get. Contact Meg at 083 2893828.

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