Encouraging young children to enjoy reading
FOCHTA has recently started weekly sessions inviting local primary school children to visit our library. There, they are read stories and encouraged to participate in story-telling. The aim is to foster an enjoyment of reading from a young age. The overcrowding and underfunding of primary schools is a very serious problem in Malawi. Most classes average over a hundred children, with neither desks nor chairs. The current sessions in the FOCHTA library are conducted by Caroline Malindima, and our programme officer Kondwani Biton. Genevieve Bielen, a FOCHTA friend in Belgium, has offered to underwrite refreshments that will be provided to the children.
In addition, she will also contribute to another programme which is to look after mostly orphaned toddlers. This programme has been run by our grassroots members, each morning providing children with maize porridge teaching songs, learning the alphabet and playing games.