Our staff is collaborating with our partner in Botswana, the Botswana Ministry of Education and Skills Development, to bring you updates on the libraries and communities we serve and how they have been affected by the novel coronavirus.

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An update from our African Partner in Botswana, Pinkie Masalela:

How has COVID-19 affected your work?

One of our objectives is to provide training for teacher librarians and parents from various schools and regions and that has been severely affected because all the funds are directed to schools to prepare themselves to be able to comply to health and wellness protocol

How has COVID-19 affected how you communicate with school facilities and school libraries, and/or how are you continuing your work on the ground during this time?

For now all schools are focusing on making sure that they comply to the COVID-19 compliance checklist. The lockdown has been lifted and we hope to continue communicating with our teams in other regions but at a slower pace as we don’t really know what can happen next.

What are ways we can encourage children to read even when schools are closed?

We have an initiative in which a parent can borrow books from the school library and read for a group of children in his or her neighborhood in my zone and we are sharing it with other zones.

List of COVID-19 Resources – Botswana