Wall of Words
The Future
Wall of Words exists to engage children in the joy of reading, thereby laying the ground for literate and knowledgeable citizens. By catching these students early in their education in literacy and numeracy, we hope to help build a solid foundation for their future education. We will seek to make reading as an inviting an activity as possible, with spaces that can be as creative as the schools desire.
Books will primarily be purchased in Rwanda. This will have the benefits of saving on shipping costs, supporting local companies and employment, and bringing culturally-relevant texts to classrooms. And though the official language of education is English, we believe in the importance of students also being literate in Kinyarwanda. Therefore, collections will be comprised of works in English and in Kinyarwanda, purchased through local publishers.
Previous Projects
Wall of Words began in 2008 with a goal of acquiring the reading materials that students need to attain a quality education and contribute toward creating a knowledgeable and skilled society.
The program also sought to cultivate joy in the simple pleasure of reading.
A young girl reads a boardbook by Eric Carle provided by the Koinonia Foundation.
Primary school boys reading books supplied by the Koinonia Foundation through the Foundation's Wall of Words program.
With help from team volunteers and members of the local community, we were able to get approximately 10,000 books sorted and distributed during that summer’s project trip. These books included primary, secondary, and post-secondary textbooks and general reading titles.
Unloading books for distribution to schools and children's homes.
Volunteers help load up the truck to distribute books.
On a trip in June 2009, we returned to sites that we had donated books to see how the students were enjoying them, and we blogged about it here and here:
- at Shyara School, where we also installed a solar power system, the school has chosen a building for the library and is awaiting shelves for the books;
- at Rwanda School project, teachers are finding that students are using the materials to progress their reading to the appropriate grade level;
- at ETO Gitarama, the administration has started a program to share the books with secondary schools across the country.
