Makumbusho school is based in the city of Dar-es-Salaam. It is a day school and currently caters to 1540 students from the surrounding neighbourhoods. The school does not have a library at present. However, recently, the district government has added 6 new classrooms to the school. One of these classrooms has been selected to be converted into a library. READ wants to go beyond the refurbishment to also run reading activities with the students of the school. We will assess the impact that reading activities have on students’ performance in English and Kiswahili reading and comprehension skills.

This project has 3 parts:

In November and December, we will transform the empty classroom into a new library. This will involve purchasing shelves, tables & chairs, referencing books and training library teachers how to run the library. This would happen in the month of November and early December.

In December, we will select and purchase 580 English and Kiswahili readers, recruit volunteers from the University of Dar-es-Salaam, and prepare a timetable for the after-school reading activities. The emphasis will be purchasing storybooks that students are tested on in their end of year examinations.

From January to May, we will manage a volunteer-run reading programme. This will be run and managed by up to 6 university student volunteers majoring in Education and a teachers, who will keep the library open between 2 – 5pm, after school hours, 3 days a week and run different reading activities. The objective of running these activities is to foster a culture of reading by giving students the access (by opening after school hours) and the space in the library to read books; get students into the habit of using the library and using the library books for supplementary independent studying ; support students’ who wish to improve their Kiswahili and /or English reading and comprehension skills, and give students the opportunity to read aloud and read along in small groups with the support of a volunteer.