Summary

December 13, 2022 will go down in history as a very memorable day at KISS Library & Learning Centre. This was the day we, together with other 60+ beneficiaries received and offloaded our books from the M-14 Container.

By: Nellie Ndala, Mary Tambala and Tabitha Banda, KISS Library and Learning Centre, Library Assistants

Muli bwanji? Ife tili bwino kwambiri.

December 13, 2022 will go down in history as a very memorable day at KISS Library & Learning Centre. This was the day we, together with other 60+ beneficiaries received and offloaded our books from the M-14 Container.

With happy and appreciative hearts, we write to acknowledge receipt of 21 boxes with 1,225 books (Thanks to the Cassius Crawford Sullivan family). Our treasure arrived at our premises at around 08:00 o’clock in the evening and, therefore, we were not able to receive them, but the KISS Library & Learning Centre Committee Chairman, the KISS Initiative President together with Annie Kachiwala, WBF M-14 Container Coordinator, did the offloading on our behalf. The handover ceremony was performed on December 20 , 2022 and we were so much overjoyed to see the beautiful books that we picked from the few boxes that we opened. The beautiful learning materials provided added to the book collection increased our joy (tinali ndi Chimwemwe chodzadza tsaya).

We were also excited to learn that the Book Drive Organizer’s Mom had spent two weeks in Mangochi and that they hope to do the same one of these days. This made us feel even more connected with them. We would, therefore, like to express our sincere gratitude to them, our friends, for this very precious gift which will change our communities’ lives. We would also like to assure them that the books and learning materials are very relevant to our communities, early childhood centres, primary and secondary school learners.

The beautiful learning materials hanging on the library walls.

We hope you will not mind if we share with you a bit of a background to our newly built Library and Learning Centre. The facility which is in Mathombo Village, has a catchment area of 24 villages that surrounds it. These villages are from five different Group Village Headmen who are all in Traditional Area (TA) Mwambo and within one constituency in Zomba District in the southern region of Malawi. For the facility to serve the catchment area better, the villages have been organized into 10 clusters of an average of two villages each. These will be apportioned days of the week to be using the library.

Currently, we are processing the books to get them ready for the shelves. So far, we have accessioned all the books and are now cataloguing, classifying and shelving them concurrently.

Us, Tabitha, Nellie & Mary, hard at work preparing the “gems” for the shelves……..

Us, Tabitha, Nellie & Mary, hard at work preparing the “gems” for the shelves……..

Us, Tabitha, Nellie & Mary, hard at work preparing the “gems” for the shelves……..

The aim is that we have a record of each and every book before clients start using them. We also want to have a proper way of organizing and classifying our books not only for us to be able to shelve them on their rightful place but most importantly that our users can find them easily and quickly.

…the gems slowly finding their places on the shelves and patiently waiting for the eager readers.

…the gems slowly finding their places on the shelves and patiently waiting for the eager readers.

…the gems slowly finding their places on the shelves and patiently waiting for the eager readers.

As we have already mentioned, the library will serve about 24 villages which will eventually have their own libraries in the coming years starting this year. It is our wish, therefore, that the materials at the centre are organized and make the facility a model to these other community libraries.

We will finally put in place logistics for using the library which will be open to the public by February 20, 2023. We intend to have a grand official opening ceremony in June 2023 where we will invite many stakeholders including our Member of Parliament, traditional leaders, religious leaders, other Community Based Organizations (CBOs), Community Based Care Centres (CBCCs), early childhood centers and surrounding schools. During this function, we intend to hold competitions (reading, poetry recitals, songs, dances, quizzes etc) with the aim of raising awareness on the importance of libraries in promoting numeracy, literacy and overall quality of education.

We will be keeping you posted on major events happening within and around the library.

Once again, receive our heartfelt thanks. We promise to provide security to our books, the best care we can and most of all ensure that they are put to good use for the benefit of the 24 surrounding villages, CBOs and schools under KISS Initiative catchment area.

Zikomo Kwambiri,

Nellie Ndala, Mary Tambala and Tabitha Banda
Library Assistants