This year, Friends of Penyem helped the village create a library for use by the residents of Penyem and neighboring villages. Our hope was that a village library would promote education by providing a location where students could gather to study under electric lights, as well as the opportunity to read books that would not otherwise be available to the village. With the help of our donors and volunteers, Friends of Penyem raised $2,000 and collected over 1,000 donated books.
In May 2007, Friends of Penyem and village volunteers transformed a raw space in an empty village building into a library. The volunteers cleaned the building, patched holes in the walls, painted, set up a battery powered lighting system, and purchased desks and chairs from a local carpenter. On the final night of the trip, the library was officially opened. Volunteers and residents alike were very excited about the presence of the library and the books and were sure it would change the lives of the residents of Penyem in a substantial way.
Since our trip, Friends of Penyem has eagerly awaited updates on how the library project has progressed. We have learned that library has come up against several challenges which the village and Friends of Penyem are working to overcome. A local person was nominated by the Village Development Committee to act as a salaried librarian, and while he has opened the library every day, we have received word that the students are no longer using the library. We are currently working with local representatives to devise strategies for increasing student interest in the library.
One thing that we’ve learned as a team about working in development is that not everything we set out to do works according to plan. As we learned before with our water project, we may lose some battles in the short term, but being flexible and perseverant can allow us to reach our goals in the long-term. We have experienced setbacks in our library project, and our hope is that with a better understanding of the reasons for the lack of use of the library we will be able to promote the use of the facility once again.
