By Sunday Ani
The Rotary Club of Lagos, Festac Cosmopolitan, on Thursday, November 2, set up two standard libraries at two primaries schools, New Town Nursery and Primary School, and Ideal Nursery and Primary School, both in Festac Town, Amuwo Odofin Local Government Area of Lagos State.
Members of the clubs, who visited the schools that are only demarcated by a wall, donated story and picture books, two metal book shelves, desks and chairs to the two schools.
Speaking after the items were handed over to the schools, the president of the club, Dr Margaret Agada-Mba said the club was only carrying out of the seven cardinal projects of Rotary.
She said the idea was to invest and catch the children young by edifying their thoughts through books and a comfortable place for them to stay and study. “By doing this, we are trying to secure our future,” she added.
On the choice of the schools, she said Rotary club is supposed to meet the needs of its community first and foremost and since the schools are within the club’s community, they were considered before other schools outside Festac. She also noted that the Club chose the government schools because they often lack a number of facilities. She equally stressed that before the Club intervenes in any situation, a gap must exist. “We thought that to do something that really makes sense or meets needs, there must be a gap, and we found the gap in these schools and that is why we are able to come in and fill in that gap,” she said.
Talking about the project, she said: “This is the first time we are doing this kind of project at this level. In the past, we have donated books and gone to read with the children but this is the first time we are blowing it so big by trying to equip two entire libraries, not just with books but also with furniture.
“We have a collection of story books for the children with various titles so that they can read across various classes. We know the relevance of stories in terms of transferring knowledge. We believe that there are things they could learn in the classroom and forget, but when they learn the same thing through stories, they will not forget because they form part of their social make ups.”
Speaking on the kinds of books that were provided, the Project Chairman, Nnaemeka Mekah, said: “We have story books like ‘Eze Goes to School’, ‘Chike and the River’, ‘Animal Farm’ and others including picture books. We have more than 30 different titles. For each school, we provided two books per title, and the idea is to have wide varieties of books for them to read. All of them will not be reading at the same time. Some will read and leave for others to also read. This is a continuous project. This time, we donated not only books but also book shelves, reading desks and chairs. Next year, we may be visiting the schools again to see which other books we may need to provide.”
Although he said the Club could not put a figure to the amount spent because items like the bookshelves were donated by an individual member, the whole project could be put in the neighbourhood of over N2.5million.
In her response, the Head Teacher, New Town Nursery and Primary School, Mrs. Ginika Nwachika, expressed her excitement, describing members of the Rotary Club of Lagos Festac as special and praying for God’s blessings upon their lives. She said the library would boost the reading culture among the children.
“I am very excited and I say that special is the name of the people that did this. May almighty God bless them; this will make the children read more. They will go to the library and pick the books they like and read them,” she said.
Receiving the items, the Assistant Head Teacher, Ideal Nursery and Primary School, Joshua Babatunde, on behalf of the Head Teacher, thanked the Rotary club for what he termed a great thing to the school. He said the gesture would improve the pupils academically as they would no longer roam about but now go to the library to read on their own.
Although this is not the first time the school is being provided with books, he stated that the school never had a bookshelf and that was why the books they had in the past did not last. “The government brought some books for us in the past but the books are no longer there probably because there were no shelves, but now that we have a shelf, the books will be kept there for proper documentation,” he stated.