The Ghana Book Trust, with support from CODE and Asanko Gold Mines Ltd. runs capacity building workshops for teachers in the management of libraries. The teachers are selected from the project schools and become the teacher-librarians who manage the use of the donated books.
Facilitators for these workshops are drawn from the Ghana Library Authority, the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology and the Ghana Education Service. The participants receive a practical lesson in library management at the Chirapatre Library in Kumasi. Over the period, more than 350 Teacher-Librarians have been trained in Library Management.
In support of the schools that the GBT works with, libraries are established. Library furniture consisting of book shelves, 8-seater tables, chairs and books are distributed to each project school.
GBT receives containers of children’s story books and information texts carefully selected by GBT’s staff, Reading Ghana international volunteers and CODE. These North American books are distributed to schools to help create a pool of books with a minimum 2,000 books per school or a 7 to 1 book to student ratio.
Ghana Book Trust uses a selection criterion that targets specific grade-level titles to procure locally published books. Formerly, sixty percent of these materials were in Twi due to Reading Ghana’s area of concentration and level of implementation (Primary 1-6). Currently GBT works with Primaries 4-6 and Junior High School 1-3 and therefore all books procured are in English.
The locally published books donated to the schools reflect current issues of interest. A number of books reflect Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (Dora is Growing Up) and (Sosu’s Call), the environment especially on illegal mining (Gizo Gizo), health and well-being (10 Things You Should Know About Malaria) and traditional folklore which carry a morale (various Ananse Stories).
In the current programme cycle, the schools in the Amansie West Districts do not have rooms specifically allocated for a library. As such, GBT provides books for these schools in book boxes. A total of 14,140 books have been provided so far for these schools.
GBT has distributed over 780,700 books to various project schools during this period.
