The library is coming along incredibly well. The remodeling is basically finished (although I may have our carpenter make us another table or two when he's available), the books have been color coded according to level, the librarian's computer has been purchased, a metal door gate for added security has been commissioned, and an extremely promising alliance with a local university is close to being officially established!
I visited the University Librarian at Ateneo de Naga University a few weeks ago to discuss a few library issues with her and get some guidance on implementing an organization system for our library. By the end of the meeting, the Univ. Librarian had offered to include our library at MCS as part of their 'outreach program'! After she and her team visited our library this past Tuesday, it was decided that staff and/or students from Ateneo would be reporting to MCS on Saturdays to help with labeling & bar coding all books, organizing the shelves, implementing the Dewey Decimal System, getting us an appropriate computer program for book borrowing, inputting all library resources into said system, and making library cards for all students in grades 3-6 who will be eligible to borrow books (about 800 students). In addition, they will continue to extend their assistance long after I'm gone through a memorandum of agreement with my school. I'm thankful for the peace of mind regarding library sustainability!
One thing I think our library is still lacking, is story books written in the kids' mother tongue(s): Tagalog & Bikol. Tagalog story books exist but they're limited, whereas Bikol books do not exist at all. The new project will take care of this problem!
My initial idea was to have students write and illustrate their own story books written in their first languages, and have them hard bound so we can add them to the library shelves. I pitched this idea to Candy, a 272 Volunteer in the next town, and she loved it! (Plus she wanted to get some experience with a smaller grant before she dives into a big project/grant for her organization, and this'll do that for her). Candy and I presented the project idea to the JCFI Scholars (the high school kids I taught an English tutorial for last summer) and they loved it, too!
Earlier today, while we were working on the grant application, Candy shared some great ideas to bring in some CYF (her PC sector: Children, Youth & Families) components to make the experience richer for the kids involved. Now, in addition to having the original goal of creating story books, we're also going to be doing some leadership training, project design & management training, and a type of 'choosing positive values' training. Most of these things will be accomplished through 'disguised' activities so that the kids achieve these objectives through working on the project as a whole. I was really impressed by Candy's suggestions and it makes me so excited to create such a rich and beneficial project for the scholars, all the while creating a much needed resource for our school!
Our first session is April 1st!
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