Fully furbished library donated to local school
The handover celebration saw the learners and school management together with principals from nearby schools gathered to open the new facility.
As the celebration of Youth Month, Renault South Africa in partnership with the Motus Imperial Trust donated a brand new library and resource centre to the Mangwele Combined School on June 24.
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The library, like two similar facilities donated earlier this year by Renault, is intended to promote literacy and a love of learning which the companies aim to instil in the early years of learning.
The facility is specially designed for use in junior schools located in underprivileged areas.
The new yellow painted library at Mangwele Combined School comes with new 1 500 books which are available from Grade R to five, an electronic board used as a projector to watch movies and reading, laptops for research and Internet connection.
Adding to these key features, the learners also get access to a full time librarian provided by the company to oversee and manage the library for a period of five years.
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According to Renault South Africa’s CEO, Shumani Tshifularo, the company is proud to be one of the stakeholders in the country to celebrate Youth Month by putting a smile on the faces of learners in need as well as changing their lives for the better through encouraging them to read.
“We could not think of a better way to celebrate and empower our youth than by supporting them in their literacy journey from the very start.
“This is why we have partnered with the Motus Imperial Trust, which has established 64 libraries in schools since 2003, to bring this library to Mangwele.
“Our dearest hope is that it’ll open the doors of learning for children at this school from an early age,” Tshifularo said.
He added that surveys show that reading performance had undoubtedly been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, with the national reading comprehension score having dropped from 78 percent in 2017.
Statistics published by the Western Cape Government in 2022 also show that nearly 60 percent of households do not own a book for leisure reading and that only 14 percent of the population reads for pleasure. More notably, only 5 percent of adults read to their children.
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“This means most children just don’t have an early exposure to books, which not only impacts their ability to comprehend the written word but compromises their cognitive and critical thinking skills in general. As the world around us becomes more digital, reading and these skills are critical as the gateway to full participation in the digital economy is literacy,” added Tshifularo.
The handover celebration saw the learners and school management together with principals from nearby schools gathered to open the new facility.
The principal of the school, Allen Chain Magau expressed heartfelt gratitude to the stakeholders for this kind gesture.
“As an individual who has reading very close to their heart, this one of the warmest gifts we have ever received as a school.
“I cannot wait to spend more time with the learners in the facility reading with and for them because through encouraging reading, we are planting a seed that no one can ever destroy,” Magau said.
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