Drummond Community High School and the 51st Scottish Brigade have joined forces to send almost 5,000 books to East Africa, reports Kenya Coordinator and school librarian Annie Scanlon (second right).
They will be transported in an Army supply ship with other equipment, and should arrive in Kenya by July.
Originally saved from a skip by a resourceful teacher at a decommissioned Army school in Germany, the books will be added to the stock of Drummond's two partnership secondary schools and an additional primary school.
Drummond volunteers weeded the collection first, then the best of them were reserved for Muthambi Girls and Muthambi Boys Schools in Kenya.
The Kenyan boys are particularly excited as the books will stock a new library building currently nearing completion (below). Seniors there have been acting as volunteer librarians since Drummond pupils helped establish a temporary collection in a small shed last year. They are now looking forward to a much larger building stocked with exciting new books and hopefully (soon) a full-time librarian.
Muthambi Girls already have an established library, but their consignment will modernise the existing collection. Some of the books were for younger readers and will go to Muthambi Primary School ‘over the fence’. It is hoped that the books will end up at home with students for bedtime stories and be read to even younger brothers and sisters.
'We have to say a huge thank-you to the 51st Scottish Brigade for arranging the cargo to Kenya,' says Scanlon.
'If this proves successful, we are hopeful that the 51st will support us by transporting resources to "our" Kenyan schools on a regular basis.'
