Organisation of the Libraries

The libraries aim to:-

Provide access to information for the communities living in the slums of Nairobi.

Provide a safe location for children where they can read books,do their school work,access information and feel at home.

Provide a space for informal learning. Where imaginations can grow, and new questions be thought of. This is a new concept for Kenya , where 'library' traditionally means "school".

Provide a space for community activities

Anyone in the local community is welcome to join.

Joining is free.

We have volunteer librarians, as well as some paid membrs of MYSA staff. We hope to enable all of our staff to have at least some pay to cover thier travel and lunch needs.

All the information books are classified according to the Dewey Decimal classification system.

Fiction books are organised alphabetically

Other Activities

School classes visits.

can come to the library to visit. One these visits the class learns how to handle books, how to access information from books, including using contents pages, indexes, glossaries etc. Also how to use a multi volume enclclopaedia.

Reading Groups

East Leigh library has a reading group , who meet to talk about and read books. We hope to encourage the children to write thier own stories and illustratwe them.

Drama Groups

Mathare North library has a drama group, who meet at least twice a week. The chilren involved all sit and talk about what is important to them with a member of MYSA staff George Nange. George then converts thier ideas into a poem or drama which the children act out.We hope to have a drama group in each library.

Homework club

Mathare North library has a homework club, where on certain days a member of staff will help advise on different school subjects,

Storytelling

Storytelling occurs in all libraries. Stories are read during xclass visits. Also at Kayole library there is a regular, Saturday morning storytime for everyone. Kayole also is lucky to have a 'Muzee' of 82 years old, who tells traditional Kenyan stories - in Kikuyu! The library staff translate into Kiswahili, and the children draw pictures of the story.

Visitors

KWANI visits each library on a regular basis. KWANI are a group of Kenyan authors who come together to publish their work. The KWANI members come to the libraries to encourage the children to write stories for themselves. They bring notepads and pencils for each child. The resulting stories have been of remarkable quality.

We also have Onyango Owino who visits - particularly East Leigh Library-. Onyango - or Zero as he likes to be called- is a professional storyteller based at the National Museum. Zero can tell stories in many Kenyan languages. We all feel that traditional storytelling should not be lost as it is part of every Kenyans heritage.

Children's author Beverley Naidoo visited again in March 2005, to see UKenya library in Kayole and Mathare North Library.

Library Meetings

Every month all staff from all of the libraries come togeether to report on their activities for that month. These meetinga alos include guest speakers. In February we had a speaker from the Kenya Breast Health programme. We discussed how the libraries could help inform the communities about breast health. We hope to have staff from Kenya Polytechnic, from City Council etc in the future.

YOU MAY DONATE BOOKS TO THE MATHARE LIBRARIES. Contact us:

Page by Bereket Stefanos.