Street Library Ghana is proud to announce new availability of its Book Chest for schools at a special 50% discounted rate.
Book Chests are collections of 150 books for children, spanning a broad variety of reading level, non-fiction topics and fiction genres. They are designed to serve as a portable library, suitable for schools and communities. The mix of carefully selected high quality books aims to develop literacy skills by nurturing a joy of reading and pursuit of knowledge.
Normally the Book Chests are available for retail to schools for GHC 600. The new initiative, however, cuts this price in half to GHC 300. The new low pricing comes on the condition that schools make the books available to children of the local community who don’t attend their school, for at least one day a week. This pricing is available now.
Interest from schools in the Book Chests is expected to be high. Schools can register their details with Street Library Ghana at info@streetlibraryghana.org.
A Ghanaian Social Entrepreneur, Hayford Siaw has been selected along Felix Uzor and Sharron Nestor as Playmakers for 2012. The selection by Playing for Change, a non-profit organization founded by Kinnevik-Sweden, supports social entrepreneurs who improve the lives of children and youth. Kinnevik believe that the best way to create a social change is to give the right tools to people who are passionate about their task and who has the entrepreneurial driving force to make a change.
The chosen entrepreneurs call Playmakers; get financial support but also advice and mentoring from a network of employees within the Kinnevik Group of companies. The goal is to help the entrepreneurs build sustainable operations that will have a great social impact. In Ghana, the Kinnevik Group includes, television station Viasat 1, telecom company Tigo, financial institutions Bayport Financial Services and Consumer Finance Company (CFC).
This Friday, out of 900 ideas, they had come down to only four, who got to pitch their ideas live in front of a jury consisting of Obefemi Banibge (CEO and acting GM, Tigo), Charlotte Gustavsson (CEO Viasat1 Ghana), Justice Boahen (CEO, CFC), Kofi Adu-Mensah (Bayport Ghana), Letitia Adu-Ampoma (Integrity manager, Tigo) and Johanna Hallin (Director Strategic Planning, Playing for Change)
Hayford’s idea is Street Library – a solution to bringing mobile libraries to rural communities, promoting literacy and educational curiosity to disadvantaged children. Felix and Sharron’s innovative idea is Sports for Life – a program for promoting water safety and preventing drowning, the number one cause of death among children in Ghana.
According to Hayford Siaw, the street library is a social purpose initiative that aims to foster sustainable social transformation and participation through education. ‘’Literacy is a key component of strategies to support long-term economic and social value creation. As a result, the Street Library aims to be ‘the means’, and not ‘the end’. Particular emphasis will therefore be given to creating a setting that should enable targeted groups (especially children and youth) to acquire skills and interest for the long-term development of their literacy level.’’ He added.