Jacaranda Foundation boosts Limbe Primary School library with 1 000 reading books
Jacaranda Foundation, which operates free primary and secondary schools for over 400 orphaned learners in Newlands, Chigumula, has entirely renovated, decorated two classrooms at Limbe Primary School that were turned in a library as well stocking it with over 1,000 text books.
The library was officially handed over to the school by Jacaranda Foundation’s executive director Luc Deschamps, in the company of newly-elected Limbe Central Ward Councillor Gerald Paul Lipikwe, Blantyre district education management, director of Solomonic Peacocks Theater McArthur Matukuta, chiefs of the area and artists Annemarie Quinn and Agorosso.
Lipikwe applauded Deschamps for his initiative, saying it is important that learners are given the opportunity to develop a reading culture at a tender age for them to excel in their studies.
“I am very grateful that the learners at Limbe Primary now now a refurbished and full stocked library. I take it that God has answered my prayer because I also has plans of bringing libraries at all schools in the ward.
“It is Important to establish a library timetable at the school with teachers taking their classes every day to the library. Emphasis must be, please take good care of the library and of the books so that more learners should benefit from it for a long time,” Lipikwe told the school management.
According to Lipikwe, Deschamps met with Evelyn Mjima, then district education manager (DEM) for Blantyre Urban three years ago, who informed her of Jacaranda’s outreach program of libraries for government primary schools.
“Mrs. Mjima the met all head teachers of primary schools in Blantyre and asked them to apply to the program. Luc Deschamps received 38 letters of applications from primary schools in Blantyre and Limbe Primary School was one of them.
“So far, 14 libraries have been opened in Blantyre: 3 community ones, nine for primary school libraries, one for a special needs school and one at Queen Elizabeth Pediatrics Department — reaching a total of 40,500 children,” Lipikwe said.
The library at Limbe Primary, is housed in a former classroom which is administered by the Chidothe family, a family from the community, but was stocked with few books they had brought from their home which they were reading to the children as volunteers.
“This encouraged Luc Deschamps to come in and help turn this room and the one next door into a proper library and reading room. The goal is for the Chidothe family to keep on helping Limbe Primary learners and the community in the newly established library and reading room. Mr. Luc’s Libraries is a community endeavor,” Lipikwe said.
The cost is the whole project is at K1.5 million that includes costs for shipping of books from the US.
Jacaranda Foundation, whose founder is Marie Da Silva and is run by Trustees with Deschamps as executive director, also operates a home support program with construction of houses for orphaned children families; a college scholarships program for its secondary school graduates, with 45 students currently in colleges in Malawi.
It also has a physiotherapy clinic for children in the community; the outreach program in public primary schools; the Jacaranda Cultural Center located in at Mandala in Blantyre and will be opening in a few months the Jacaranda Vocational School.
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