Some pictures from the Bolgatanga project which was carried out in Sumbrungu in 2018.
Building of a Media Center in Assin Nkran
Biblionef Ghana in collaboration with The MediaMundial Foundation in the Netherlands has selected Assin Nkran in the Central Region of Ghana, to build a Media Center and Library for the children in the community.
Biblionef Ghana is an NGO, that supports education in Ghana through donation of new children’s books, training for teachers in institutions/ organisations that offer services to underprivileged children and helping to set up or refurbish community and school libraries.
The MediaMundial Foundation focuses on the combination of providing social internships for students from the Netherlands on the one hand and building, renovating and facilitating media libraries in, or near schools in developing countries. Two Ambassadors from MedaMundial will be arriving to Ghana on the 18th of March 2024, to the 30th March 2024 with a team of 20 university students to assist with the construction of the center. They will be followed by another team on 20th April to May 1st 2024, of 20 secondary school children from Wolfert Bilingual Secondary School to continue with the construction.
For more information on the project, visit the links below:
On Thursday, July 6,2023, Biblionef Ghana, presented 8185 books and educational resources to 15 Kindergarten schools in the Adentan Municipality. These items were sponsored by the North Sea Lions and Lions club Skiramere Slochteren in the Netherlands and The Links Incorporated in the United States.
The event was held at the Adenta Victory Presby Church Hall.
The resources consisted of locally published and foreign storybooks, early grade and phonic readers, together with several educational resources, including slates, crayons, jigsaw puzzles, alphabet and number templates, play dough, building blocks, among others.
Additionally, The Links Incorporated provided funding for mobile cupboards for five of the schools.
Mr. Christopher Jolly, founder of Jolly Phonics and Managing Director of Jolly Learning Ltd in the UK, generously donated all the Jolly Phonics materials for the schools.
The Guest of Honour for the occasion was Nana Richard Baffour Awuah (Director, Pre-Tertiary Education, MoE). The event was chaired by Mrs. Ewurabena Ahwoi, a retired educationist and former Director for Girl Child Education, Ghana.
Mrs Patricia Arthur, Executive Director, Biblionef Ghana, Ms Gifty Mussey, Municipal Director of Education, Adenta; Mrs Durowaa Amponsah Mensah, Early Childhood Coordinator, Adenta; Mrs Genevieve Eba-Polley, Executive Director, Ghana Book Trust and officials from the Accra World Book Capital 2023 Committee, were present at the event.
Earlier in March this year, as part of the project, Biblionef Ghana with support from the North Sea Lions Club and Lions club Skiramere Slochteren, held a Four (4)-day capacity-building workshop on Library Management, Reading Promotion and Phonic Training for 30 Kindergarten teachers in the Adentan Municipality.
Workshop on Library Management, Reading Promotion and Phonic Training for 30 Kindergarten teachers
Mrs Wia Huisman-Smeenk, a trained Dutch librarian specialised in reading promotion and information literacy and a long-time collaborator of Biblionef Netherlands was also present at the workshop as a resource person.
Others in attendance were Ms Gifty Mussey, Municipal Director of Education, Adenta; Mrs Durowaa Amponsah Mensah, Early Childhood Coordinator, Adenta, Mr Jonathan Amoako-Baah, Madam Esther Tandoh, the then president of the Accra Lions Club and Mrs Ohui Allotey, the Board Secretary of Biblionef Ghana.
Participants of the workshop with Mrs Patricia Arthur, the Executive Director of Biblionef and Mrs Wia Huisman-Smeenk
Items donated to the schools were sponsored by the North Sea Lions and Lions club Skiramere Slochteren in the Netherlands
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The books, cupboards and educational resources were distributed to the various schools
The Stories for Inclusion project evolved from a partnership between the Niketan Foundation and Biblionef.
Niketan provides education and support to children and young people with disabilities at family, community and school level in Bangladesh, while Biblionef helps underprivileged children worldwide to discover the joy of reading by giving them new, inspiring children’s books.
As part of the project, various activities and interventions made towards creating larger disability and inclusion awareness in basic schools in Ghana. These activities were:
A two-day workshop was held in October 2022 with a total of 18 participants. Participants included principals and teachers from selected schools, local authors, editors and publishers, representatives from the Adenta Municipal Education office and Special Education Department. The workshop sought to promote inclusive behaviour and understanding around disability through children’s books and storytelling, and to encourage teachers to use the storybooks to talk openly to children about disability.
Els Heijnen-Maathuis, a Niketan team member with experience working with inclusivity, trained participants on how to deliver inclusive instruction and encouraged writers, illustrators, and publishers to embrace diversity in their storybooks.
The books used and distributed to various schools for the project were Runa, Sosu's Call, The Lucky one, Mulgheta and Community Through Your Senses.
A Trainers of Trainers workshop was held in January 2023 with a total of 31 teachers from four schools.Also present at all the trainings were the Head of the Special Needs Department of the Municipal Education Office, Mrs Gloria Agbeko and three of her staff, and the Training Officer for the Municipality, Mrs Felicia Azizem.
The teachers were taken through how the books should be used in the classroom with the Activity guides and were educated on terminology that should not be used in class to refer to children with disabilities.
The team visited the schools to interact with children and teachers, and to find out whether the books have impacted them and the overall evaluation of the project.
How storybooks about children with a disability (can) raise awareness and increase understanding.
Worldwide around 93 million children live with some form of disability and are frequently seen as being less able and even less valuable than other children. Society, and sometimes even their own family, often marginalizes or excludes them.
Discrimination is a universal problem. It is also evident in Bangladesh and Ghana where “Stories for Inclusion” will be piloted.
The root causes stem from cultural taboos, peer pressure in the community, and deep-rooted prejudices passed down from generation to generation.
To improve the situation, children with disabilities must first become more visible in society.
“There is only one way to look at things until someone shows us how to look at them with different eyes.” ~ Pablo Picasso
THE PROJECT
‘Stories for Inclusion’ aims to do this by developing and distributing children’s books featuring characters with a disability and showing how it feels to grow up with a disability.
In addition, the project will help mainstream schools better understand children who have a disability and accept them in the same way they would accept any other child.
Reading about characters with disabilities will offer every child the chance to learn about and experience diversity through stories. This will lead to a more open and tolerant society, beginning with children.
During the first phase of the project, a children’s book about growing up with Cerebral Palsy (CP) will be published.
The book, called “My name is Runa, tells the real-life story of Runa, a young girl with CP in Bangladesh. It describes Runa’s experiences when growing up, both positive and negative.
Runa, who is now a teaching assistant at the Niketan school for children with special needs, will also visit regular schools in Bangladesh to talk about CP.
Runa’s book will be available in English, Bangla and Dutch and will reach thousands of children in Ghana and Bangladesh. “My Name is Runa” includes an Activity Guide with additional information for teachers and parents.
Selected primary schools in Ghana will also receive a selection of age-appropriate children’s books about living with a disability.
Local writers and illustrators in Ghana and Bangladesh will also develop stories through the project. In the second phase of the project (2022) children, teachers, school principals and parents will provide feedback.
The focus will be on knowledge sharing. In this way, the project can serve as a role model for other schools and countries.
Presenting storybook characters with physical, mental or other disabilities to primary school children in a positive way will expand their perception of ‘normal’ and will increase their capacity for empathy and acceptance.
WHY
Our research revealed that inclusive storybooks featuring children with disabilities are either hard to find or simply do not exist, especially in low-income countries.
Most books about disability tend to be in English and very few give the child with a disability a voice. Some stories even contain negative depictions of disability, especially some classic children’s books, further reinforcing negative stereotypes among children.
Developing inclusive children’s books about disability locally and distributing them internationally will further increase the impact of “Stories for Inclusion”.
PARTNERSHIP
The project evolved from a partnership between two registered charities in the Netherlands: the Niketan Foundation and Biblionef.
Niketan provides education and support to children and young people with disabilities at family, community and school level in Bangladesh, while Biblionef helps underprivileged children worldwide to discover the joy of reading by giving them new, inspiring children’s books.
