The donation demonstrates USAID’s commitment to increase the availability of a variety of early grade reading materials in Kinyarwanda, with the main purpose of increasing the number of students who can read fluently before they complete Primary Three and develop a love of reading.
USAID Soma Umenye is providing classroom libraries in all Primary 1, Primary 2 and Primary 3 classrooms in all public and government-aided schools in Rwanda. The mini-libraries allow young readers to choose a book relevant to their reading ability and to practice their reading. All the books have been approved by the Rwanda Education Board.
Patience Rwibutso Karekezi, one of the founders of Agati Library appreciated the donation. “We are very happy to receive the books. Our library is still new and we are still putting up a strong foundation to become our district’s best library and beyond. We are very sure that the children who visit Agati will love these books. They are very beautiful, easy and interesting to read,” she enthused.
Agati Library opened its doors six months ago, the first and only library in Musanze town, in Northern Province of Rwanda. The library was created by a group of youth aged 22 to 24, with the aim of providing quality books to children and young adults in the region.
“We didn’t want our sisters and brothers in the district to grow without a place to read a book from as we did when we were young. All six of us loved to read, but we couldn’t find a bookstore or library nearby. We are very grateful that people and projects like USAID Soma Umenye are supporting our initiative. This helps us to grow,” said Rigobert Uwiduhaye, one of the six founders, an artist-painter who mainly creates arts to raise the library funds.
USAID Soma Umenye Chief of Party, Stephen Blunden, congratulated the founders of Agati Library for the initiative and energy they have put in for the people of Musanze. He promised, “USAID Soma Umenye will continue to support and equip young Rwandan learners with a variety of ‘levelled’ P1, P2 and P3 Kinyarwanda books to read. Today we’ve provided Agati Library with a set of 65 P1 readers suitable for our youngest readers. We will also provide P2 and P3 readers in the coming months.’
USAID Soma Umenye (“Read and Know”) is a partnership between USAID and REB targeting every public and government-aided primary school in Rwanda with the goal of improving the reading performance of at least one million students. USAID Soma Umenye works directly with REB to develop textbooks and teacher’s guides, to provide teacher training, and to implement effective assessment to achieve this essential goal of improved reading.
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