TWENTY selected primary and secondary schools in and around Chitungwiza, Harare and Marondera recently received a donation of books courtesy of the Chitungwiza Rotary Club.
Chitungwiza CitiMed Hospital chief executive officer Timothy Goche, who is also the immediate president of the club, presented the donation.
Addressing school representatives last week at the Chitungwiza CitiMed Hospital, Goche said the donation was a fulfilment of their mission as the Rotary Club of Chitungwiza to promote education and literacy among the school-going ages and the adults.
“As Rotary Club, we are fulfilling our mandates and one of them is education and literacy. From time to time, we source books in conjunction with our partners in South Africa and America. We then distribute them to needy schools in both rural and urban set-ups.
“As you can see, we are overjoyed and are encouraging a culture of reading. Several schools have sent representatives to collect books, which they will stock in their libraries. We had a wide range of books that suit infants to tertiary levels. This is going to develop a culture of reading,” Goche said.
“We wish to extend our book distribution to more schools and in future, we will be looking forward to donating computers and accessories to schools and community libraries.
“Looking back at this consignment, there are several books on computers and information technology. Our next consignment will be laptops and desktop computers. We wish to catch children young so that they will be able to use computers and related technologies.”
Dunny Makoni, a founder of the Rotary Club of Chitungwiza, assisted the schools in accessing their allocated books.
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From the looks of it, each of the 20 schools managed to collect over 200 textbooks and general reading books.
Media house representatives in attendance were each given a textbook on Introduction to Multimedia by Ana Weston Solomon published in Oakland, California.
School representatives expressed excitement over the donations.
Prospect Primary School deputy head Norah Dzoza, who was being accompanied by two senior teachers from her school, said she was excited with the donation, adding that that was her second time to receive books from the Rotary Club of Chitungwiza.
“These books are very important to children because they develop a culture of reading. They (children), in turn, travel and tour around the world through the book,” she said.
“We are very thankful and grateful for the support we get from the Rotary Club of Chitungwiza and we wish to engage them again when we are in need.
“Books are read conveniently and retain the advantage of easy access at no additional cost as incurred in ICT-based technologies.”
Beauty Gomo, a teacher at Prospect Primary Schools, expressed joy that the culture of reading is receiving support as it helps children to improve on their language and grammar and understanding of their environment and the international world.
Ernia Sithole, a teacher at Matukwa Primary School in Marondera district, hoped the donation would go a long way in improving pupils’ reading skills.
She added that the recently donated books would help the students to read and understand more concepts in the Heritage-Based Curriculum.
“We would like to encourage the international word to avail more support to the Rotary Club of Chitungwiza so that it will be able to donate more books and computers to schools,” she said.
Some of the schools that benefited included Mutukwa Primary, Prospect Primary, Queen Elizabeth, Seke 7 Primary, Zengeza High 1, St Mary’s High, Mberi Primary, among others.
