Finally Home
The bright red shipping container pictured above is now the HOME of the Our Reading Spaces Program at the Thika Primary School for the Blind and Kairi village in Kenya. Over 22,000 books were donated by individual donors in the USA and Books for Africa. Caring Georgia volunteers assembled to sort and pack these books for children and families in far away Kenya.
While it is easy today to celebrate the Library, just a few short years ago the fate of these donated books was in limbo because a Delta Airlines flight from Atlanta to Nairobi was suddenly cancelled. This meant that inABLE had to seek out an alternative shipping plan. We did not know quite where to start, but we had to do something, as the schools and entire community was already waiting for the shipment books. Thankfully, the Safaricom Foundation came through, in a big way, with a grant to ship the books.
Now this new Our Reading Spaces Program has many wonderful stories to share. It’s a welcome place for the children who arrive at the library daily, the senior citizens (70 years old) in the community who stop by often to pick up a book or learn to read. Even college students, who cannot afford to buy new text books, visit to access computer books that are required for their classes.
Now that our Kairi library is finally home and open, we can take time to a moment to recognize the impact of our collective hard work and efforts as we continue to expand the Our Reading Spaces Program.
The bright red shipping container pictured above is now the HOME of the Our Reading Spaces Program at the Thika Primary School for the Blind and Kairi village in Kenya. Over 22,000 books were donated by individual donors in the USA and Books for Africa. Caring Georgia volunteers assembled to sort and pack these books for children and families in far away Kenya.
While it is easy today to celebrate the Library, just a few short years ago the fate of these donated books was in limbo because a Delta Airlines flight from Atlanta to Nairobi was suddenly cancelled. This meant that inABLE had to seek out an alternative shipping plan. We did not know quite where to start, but we had to do something, as the schools and entire community was already waiting for the shipment books. Thankfully, the Safaricom Foundation came through, in a big way, with a grant to ship the books.
Now this new Our Reading Spaces Program has many wonderful stories to share. It’s a welcome place for the children who arrive at the library daily, the senior citizens (70 years old) in the community who stop by often to pick up a book or learn to read. Even college students, who cannot afford to buy new text books, visit to access computer books that are required for their classes.
Now that our Kairi library is finally home and open, we can take time to a moment to recognize the impact of our collective hard work and efforts as we continue to expand the Our Reading Spaces Program.
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