We’re Putting Libraries in Students’ Hands!
Imagine a school with no books.
This might be difficult for you to fathom — How can students learn without books?
But for students in developing nations this situation is all too familiar. In Kenya, many students are lucky to have one tattered textbook to share with 6 other students. They stay late into the evening copying the content by hand into their personal notebooks — a process that leaves little time for actual study or understanding of the material.
This scarcity of textbooks is a huge roadblock to learning, but we are happy to announce an exciting new solution to put an entire library of books in each of our students’ hands!
CRF has just been approved by WorldReader to be a partner in their efforts to put books into impoverished children’s hands. WorldReader (www.worldreader.org) is a nonprofit organization based in Seattle and founded by a former Amazon.com executive. Their mission statement is pretty simple… Books for all. They have approached most of the publishing houses in the world to get electronic downloads of their libraries for little to no cost. They pre-load these books on eReaders that they sell at cost to nonprofits like CRF to help educate children around the world.
CRF just launched our first eReader program at our new Suzy Peacock Memorial High School in Eldoret, Kenya. Jake Reeves, a missionary from Amarillo has been helping with the launch. We received our first 50 eReaders loaded with Kenyan textbooks and classic literature. And the eReaders even have wi-fi capability so students can do research assignments on the internet.
Our teachers are amazed at the technology, and our students are excited at the opportunity. They know they are blessed with a gift that no other school in the district has.
We think this is just the beginning. Our goal is to have each class at Suzy Peacock outfitted with eReaders. That means we need at least 100 more.