Read On! - Books for 200 deaf children in Zimbabwe

We wanted to report the progress we have made with our Book Project. Do you enjoy looking at colourful children’s picture books? There are some lovely books which can capture children’s attention and give them a love for books and reading. The books you helped us get from UK are finally in Zimbabwe! Two crates of books were shipped to South Africa and then transported to Zimbabwe by Books2Africa. We are now arranging to get the books down to Mutare from Harare. We will soon be able to take photos and show you the books you helped provide! Watch this space……. We have sorted out story booklets we produced years ago to photocopy again and provide to the children in school classes. Schools opening in Zimbabwe has been delayed for a further 2 weeks. We want to provide books for deaf children in and out of school, so they can borrow books and use them to share ideas with their families at home when schools are shut- for holidays and shutdowns due to COVID 19. The Deaf community feel a strong connection to deaf children – being keen for them to learn good signed communication and also to get better education opportunities than they experienced themselves. The key role of deaf adults in our book project is understood and they are keen to volunteer and be involved. We watched deaf adults reading to deaf children and noticed how engaged the children were. A training session on reading to deaf children helped the group pick out and practice the important ways to keep children’s attention and help them understand the story. We still need to buy the boxes and transport books and storytellers to the schools- we appreciate your support of this project.