INDIA SCHOOL LIBRARIES: EDUCATION ENRICHMENT FOR SCHOOLS OF SOUTH INDIA

Library sponsorship is a fairly new LPGM initiative, coordinated by Doug and Jane Koons who volunteered in India with LPGM for two years. Currently 100 India school libraries are sponsored by several congregations, groups, and individuals.

Update: Winter 2009

Letter to a Library

Alma Strohm’s children and grandchildren are supporting a library in India in her honor. Below is an excerpt from a letter that Alma wrote to her school library. It explains the special bond this sponsor has with libraries and why her family’s support of a library is a perfect gift to honor her.

I have learned that you were able to get some books for your school library from the Book Fair. That is wonderful news! Wouldn’t it be fun if we could sit and read some of your new books together? I have always loved to read! When I was about nine years old, I heard the news that a library was to be opened in the little town in Nebraska where we lived. I was so excited because they told me that anyone could go to the library and borrow a book for two weeks–and it wouldn’t cost anything!

I will try to explain . . . my parents immigrated to the United States from Denmark shortly before I was born. They settled first in South Dakota, then moved to Nebraska and later to Kansas. They were very poor. My father worked very hard to learn English, but my mother spoke very little English. I didn’t learn English until I started going to school when I was six years old. Then, I would come home and teach English to my mother using my school books. Once I learned to read, I wanted to read every book that I could find! But, books cost money, and we didn’t have money for books. My school did not have a library. That’s why I was so excited when the library opened in our town–I would be able to read all of the books for free!

So, you can see why I am so grateful and so happy that your school can have a library, and I am so amazed I can help!

Have libraries played an important part in your life? Consider supporting a library for a school in India. Imagine what a story the children in India will tell their grandchildren about their first library experience. We are looking for just 14 more sponsors.

A Christmas 2008 note from Jane:

Greetings, One and All.
We hope that yours has been a warm and blessed Christmas with family and friends.

Doug and I are feeling most festive with having attended 20 Christmas and library delivery programs in the past few weeks.  These images are from library deliveries in the Kalrayan Hills.  It simply does not get much better than watching the children look on in wonderment as Mrs. Rosy, headmistress of Alathi, turns the pages of a new book.  By the time she reached the end, parents and villagers were also ringed around to see how it ended.  And getting  materials to Melvellar gives whole new meaning to mobile library.  Because of the monsoons, books were carried by hand and head across rivulets, over wet rocks and up the hill to the school.  Students and adults alike enjoyed the procession.

We send our best for the start of 2009.
Jane and Doug

Update: Autumn 2008 – Sandra’s Corner
by Sandra Anderson

Last year around this time my sister-in-law suggested that we find some worthy cause to support with our family Christmas dollars. We thought this was a fine idea as we all have too much “stuff” already and we also think that each of us is the hardest person in the world to shop for. At our Thanksgiving table I suggested we sponsor a school library in India. This was not a very hard sell as we are all readers and one of us is a librarian. So we sent in our  money and soon after received a note from Doug and Jane Koons that our library was HS Sandepet located in the city of Tirukoilor. I was pleased, as that is the place I usually stay when I am in India and it might be possible for me to actually visit our library.

In August I got to do just that, and now I have a new story to tell at Christmas. A story of overcrowded classrooms, 100 degree heat, and teachers struggling without even minimal resources . . . but also a story of great hope and enthusiasm! The children and parents that were members of the “Book Selection Committee” nearly shook my arm off in their appreciation for this wonderful opportunity and resource. The teachers and administrators from the school were quick to welcome me and the six other visitors with ceremony, tea and shawls. It was clearly a great honor for each child to have been appointed to the book committee. There were many pictures taken of me with the book selection committee. They promised over and over to think of us and pray for us when they choose the books and when the shipment of chosen books arrives. So, I will have a terrific story to tell at Christmas this year. The children at Sandepet will remember us in prayer and we will include them in our prayers. This is truly a Christmas blessing for our family.

We hope to find 39 more library sponsors — might this be right for your family? It is only $300 a year for 5 years. For us it is $20 per person. Even our recent college grads can afford it. Call or email our office and we will help you get information on your library to share at your Christmas celebration.

Update: Spring 2008 – A Much Bigger Dream, the Arcot Lutheran Church School Library Project by Jane Baker Koons

The first school library Book Fair of the Arcot Lutheran Church (ALC) has been completed with great success. Library committees from the 27 pilot schools came from all over the ALC to a large meeting hall at the School Project headquarters. Participants from Bangalore and Chennai traveled six hours each way on public buses for the opportunity to create their new libraries. The Bangalore group arrived at 3:00 a.m. to make sure they did not miss out on anything–and they didn’t!

The library committees were inclusive–headmistresses and headmasters, teachers, well-wishers (such a supportive title for PTA parents, alumni and community leaders) and, most importantly, students. From third graders to teacher training candidates, all of them took their responsibilities of selecting books seriously. Student committee members said this was the first time ever they had a chance to choose books for their school. They felt honored and respected to be a part of the process.

When they entered the Book Fair, the committees saw a rainbow of almost 600 volumes, in both Tamil and English, sorted by category and filling the space. An elementary student from Melpattambakkam described her initial feelings: “It was so exciting to see so much in a big hall. When we started looking over the books on the tables, it made us very happy. We will never forget this day.”

“I had a dream of a new library for our school,” a teacher from Suviseshapuram told us, “but after seeing all of the books to choose from, I have a much bigger dream.” Master teachers, both elementary and secondary, determined the categories and selected the books. They did a wonderful job in balancing grade levels and topics for the fair.

Armed with clipboards, order forms and calculators, the committees began their work. Earnestly (and we mean earnestly) they examined book after book. The collaboration between the adults and the students was especially exciting to observe. Periodically the committees would gather outside under a tree to compare notes and do their initial calculations. There were columns of prices to add up! Each school was able to order 150 to 200 books for Phase I of their library. The books proved too irresistible. At any given time, students and adults needed to pull up chairs and read the “merchandise.” No wonder it took hours for most schools to complete their orders.

Almost all of the participants commented on how excited they were to see new materials. A student from an ALC Teachers’ Training Institute expressed her enthusiasm for fresh resources: “When we go out on our practicums and start reading to the class, the students always say, ‘We know, we know, we’ve heard it before.’ Now we will have new stories to tell.” The enthusiasm will spread beyond the committees. Chinnasalem middle school boys, peering over each other’s shoulders while examining their choices, said they would read ALL of the new books and then tell every one of their friends that they had to read them as well. A high schooler fron Sandapet asked whether children from the streets could also come to use the library. A good question for the next meeting of their library committee! That decision is theirs.

All of the pilot schools now selecting unique libraries are intrigued by the diversity of the library sponsors–congregations, Sunday and vacation Bible schools, a book group, college students, a gourmet dinner group, a school, families, a Rotary Club and individuals. They are particularly captivated by the children and grandchildren of the Rice Family who gave the gift of a school library to their 85-year-old grandmother for Christmas and birthdays. There is wonderment that people so far away care about their schools and their libraries.

One of the key objectives of this enriched education is to create ownership. An educational specialist from Denmark, Frede Kroejgaard, who is consulting with ALC schools, saw the Book Fair in action. He observed that by having master teachers select the model library collection, ownership is created for the libraries among the faculty. By having inclusive committees create unique libraries, ownership is developed at the grassroots level, especially with the students, who have chosen books that they and their friends will want to read. Frede said that this process was a model for ownership development that should be emulated in a culture that is more top-down than bottom up. “It was a revelation to me and I am re-thinking how to incorporate this approach in projects I am currently working on.”

Schools are taking pride in and ownership of their libraries in different ways as well. The Vridhachalam Higher Secondary decided they should be the ones to launch their new library before coming to the Book Fair. At the leave-taking ceremony for the 12th grade students, administrators, teachers and senior students, one by one, presented a gift of a book for the new library. By the end, books were stacked high on benches–200 volumes in all–as a real foundation for their new library. What a legacy for these almost-graduates to leave for their school!

Now that temperatures are climbing into the 90s in South India, isn’t October just around the corner? The next Book Fair will be in autumn and 40 more sponsors are needed for Phase II. The ALC has over 200 schools. Let the diversity of sponsors expand. Please sign up and join us.