2015: Literacy Challenge

The Thinkpeace team sets a big goal for each Students Rebuild Challenge!

The Grand Prairie Fine Arts Academy team hard at work making bookmarks for the Literacy Challenge.

We love these bookmarks by 13th Peterborough Pathfinders & Rangers (Girls Guide of Canada)!

The Integrated Arts Academy team worked hard on their bookmarks for the Literacy Challenge!

Beautiful bookmarks by BlueDevilTAG.

Chandra Kala, 20, is a community volunteer at a reading camp situated in Tingharawa in Kapilvastu district in western Nepal. She understands the frustration of having lessons delivered in the national language, a language which she did not understand well when she first started school. “Had I received the same opportunities as the children in the reading camp, I would have achieved a higher level of learning. I struggled to understand the meaning of books written in the Nepali language. Now I support the younger generation in my village, helping their transitions from the Tharu and Awadhi languages to Nepali," says Chandra. Chandra’s support is extremely beneficial to these children. Every Saturday, at least 27 girls and boys from Tingharawa gather in Chandra’s house to attend a reading camp. Save the Children, in association with local partner organization, Kalika Self-reliance Social Center, introduced the reading camp in the village in 2013 and has supported the children’s learning ever since. At the camp, children are provided with reading materials in both the Nepali and the Tharu languages. Until recently, most of the books, while age-appropriate for each child’s level, had been fiction. Thanks to the Students Rebuild Literacy Challenge, the reading camp recently received non-fiction books and the children can now spend their time poring over texts that not only help them improve their command of the Nepali language, but also add to their knowledge.

“In class we study reading, writing, math and gym. I have fun with my classmates and we play with a ball, which we made ourselves out of rags,” she says. After school, once Awa has completed her homework, she goes to the reading camp run by Save the Children at her Aunt Fati’s house. There Afou, a reading camp volunteer is on hand to help her with her reading and lend her books from the communal book bank. “I go to Fati’s home to learn to read with plastic books that I find very interesting, especially the pictures,” she explains. At the reading camp, Awa has access to books written in her mother tongue. “I like the books!” she says. “I like the picture of the bananas and lemons. It gives me the confidence to read the content. I understand it easily as it’s written in Barmankan.” About 20 children attend the camp regularly, which is run by four volunteers. They read independently or with reading buddies, play word and letter games and compete in reading marathons. The children like learning about scientific subjects from the books like the density of matter and the properties of liquids.