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Libraries and Community Study Groups

Community Library in Cameroon, 2002

On behalf of the members and well-wishers of FAWEDA, we thank you sincerely for your generous donation of five books to us. The books have been termed by us as "The Books of Life", because generation upon generation shall live to gain from the books. The books will also help in our library and especially our resource persons to work on the books and help the local community. Your donation will leave a memorable mark on FAWEDA, which brightens the lives of thousands of destitute families especially poor children in the rural areas. We are working hard to improve the livelihood of the people in the domain of health, education agriculture, and other projects.

Appreciation for Helping Children Who Are Blind from a Library for the Blind and Visually Impaired in Novosibirsk, Russia

Thank you a ton from the received book "Helping Children Who are Blind" which is truly the "Book of Life", an also for information about the Hesperian Foundation's publications and activity for the good of blind and visually impaired children and adults.

Your very beautiful book will be presented on the coming Day of Information in the Library for our readers, rehabilitation specialists and parents of blind and visually impaired children.

We think your book will be useful practical guidelines for parents and specialists who work with blind and visually impaired children.

We appreciate your information support and hope on further collaboration.

Kind regards from Siberia,

Yuri Lesnevsky
Director of the Novosibirsk Regional Special Library for the Blind and Visually Impaired

Establishment of Reading Tent in Kisii, Kenya, 2000

Below are excerpts from two letters about the uses of Hesperian books in establishing a reading tent and frontline community-based healthcare.

1st letter: Our group was extremely happy with the donation (of books) and please receive a vote of thanks from all the members. We have opened a temporary reading tent where villagers who are able to read can come. We are also using the books as a base of our authority on the first line of treatment in case of emergency and on diseases which can be handled at the village level. The books are also serving as a village consulting book in the event of health problems. Now we are trying to equip the reading tent with tables and chairs. Two volunteer members work at the tent on a rotational basis for six hours a day for free.

2nd letter: I am writing to acknowledge receipt of the two additional books donated to us by the foundation. The books were presented to the group on 24/08/2000 the same day they were received. Please on behalf of the group receive a vote of thanks for our continued kind gesture. I am happy to confidently reveal to the Foundation that with the books donated our association has been turned into an active Health Education movement with over 30 adult members attending daily. Three quarters of whom are women and girls and the rest are men.

Our reading tent is now fully operational totally equipped with tables and benches. The tent is now open for six hours from Monday to Sunday from twelve noon to six in the evening. We have made it a village Health Library courtesy of the Hesperian Foundation. Attendance to reading and discussion sessions each day has tremendously increased and our activities are now known far and wide. We have moved a step further and we are now inviting health specialists to come and talk to us on diversified issues. Due to increasing number of female participants and the great number of books received teaching on female health. We have elevated Agnes Moraa Ndarera who has been an active member to the position of Women's Affairs teacher. We have also created a Women's wing under her leadership. This was because we realized that women had unique problems which could be effectively discussed among themselves.

Evening Health Reading, Ghana

Our village loved and appreciated the parcel and the contents. We thank you for thinking of us. The books are doing marvelous things for the people especially the youth. In the evenings when everyone has finished working, we gather under a tree and I read and explain some of the content to them, especially "Where Women Have No Doctor." Topics like family planning, eating for good heath, understanding our bodies, general health and AIDS have been beneficial for me and the villagers as a whole. The other book, Where There Is No Doctor, is really saving lives and improving the standard of living in the village. May God bless the Hesperian Foundation.

Community Reading & Discussion Program, Sromani Presbyterian Church, Dormaa-Ahenkro, Ghana

Great was joy when my community received your books. Thank you very much for your nice presentation to me and my people. . . . Please you asked me to write to you how I am using the book. In fact, I and my people are using the book wisely and it is helping us a lot. Since we have no clinic in our area we all meet in Sromani Presby Church every Sunday evening to share whatever is in the book chapter by chapter, and after an discussion we open the floor for everybody to ask any question that may worry him or her concerning the chapters. After any discussion we do small oral test to know either they have understood the chapter well. If they couldn't answer the questions then we retreach the topic again. So far this is how I and my people are using the book and it is helping us a lot. We see no problems about the book; everything in it is good to our health; so far we have no seen any problem in book. And all that we are saying is God bless you and your health workers . . .