Dowling Primary School receives a library
The school partnered with RRL who brought in School Aid (a charity which works with schools in developing countries).
“This library was set up for you. A place where you can walk in to take a book out and go and read it at home, this is what a library is meant for,” said Cyril Turton, the founder of Readers R Leaders (RRL) at the launch of the library at Dowling Primary School on April 17.
The school partnered with RRL who brought in School Aid (a charity which works with schools in developing countries). Principal Monty Sandows said, “Three-to-four years ago we used our classrooms and had little classroom libraries, but once Readers R Leaders came into the school, phase one of the library began.
“The reason for today is to officially hand over the library to the school. We want all of our children to spend time in our library every week. We would like to thank Readers R Leaders and School Aid, School Governing Body (SGB) members and RRL volunteers who are present.”
After the principal’s address, learners from different grades rendered items such as speeches, dance, poems and reading books in Afrikaans and English.
Turton added to his speech that, “RRL will be six-years-old in July. A big thank you to all our volunteers, RRL could not have done this without you. We started our work in the new library during a time when it was used as a dumping room, we sat where we could.”
“We eventually moved to the room we now occupying and just to let you know, we now have an impact in six schools in our communities with a total of 140 learners a year.
“This school did not have a library and we could not say to our learners that they must go and fetch a book at the library – so our journey started to help get the school a library, this was three and a half years ago.”
According to Turton, RRL had Nando’s donate books and Roger Jardine from Prime Media who contributed to the upgrading of the library.
“Three years ago, we invited Michael from School Aid and after a few stops and goes, Dowling Primary School finally signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with School Aid in 2018 who have put in a lot of time and resources to get the library open and functional, and today we are celebrating the opening of the library.”
“Lunga Nqadolo, thank you for what your organisation had done, it is appreciated. Thank you for your time spent in our library, for our children. To the learners of the school, please enjoy the books, cultivate a love for reading, look after your library, respect it and love your library.”
Nqadolo then responded in her speech by saying, “Had it not been for Readers R Leaders, we would not be here. I would like to thank them for bringing us to the school. We bring books to your schools for you to read so that you can be a leader one day. We work with different organisations to bring resources to the school so that we can have an effective library.”
Nqadolo added that the Peter Cundill Foundation in partnership with School Aid and the Bookery contributed towards getting the library done for the school. She also said that they will be visiting the library every month for the next three years. The unveiling of the plaque was done by the principal, the two deputy principals Erèna Gous and Justis Lekaba and SGB Rupert West along with Nqadolo.
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