December 2012

End of the year month, a month of independence day, Christmas month and so many holidays to most working firms. But to us it was a beginning of the year month and most busiest too. According to the registrar of the NGO, the instructions require us to prepare an end of the year report and to us our first month is December and therefore we have to work on it.

We started publishing ourselves through various ways one of them being through MICHUZI blog. We got positive responses from two important people, Mr. Rodrick Maro from LHRC who contributed some publications to our library and Prof. Mbele from USA who also contributed some books. We really appreciate donation and we ask you to support us more whenever possible.

We went through internet too. There we got some successes and some challenges. Challenges includes the following; We contacted Better Books, They are from USA, they said, they are able to donate books filling the 40ft container, but shipping cost of that container from USA to my destination will be on my own, they said it ranges around US$10500. This was our stopping point, but we aimed to come back to them when we shall have that capacity.

Book Aid International were second in our list. They said they do not donate books directly to every beneficiary NGO or Institute but they do it through the organization that they work with in that particular country and in Tanzania mainland they are working with TLSB( Tanzania Library Service Board). We aimed to contact this board to see where shall we end.

Books Abroad also were in our list. They told us that they can donate some books to us but we have to fill the request form. We did it, though in that form it clearly explain that they receive a lot of requests and therefore filling the form does not guarantee that they will give you books. We played our part and we are waiting for their response.

Success stories of the month include the following; we asked for the membership in the Tanzania Library Association and they confirmed on our membership status in the coming month. I will explain more in stories from January.

It was in this month that we contacted British Council under BBC world class to ask for the twinning of schools from our region with other schools abroad. To this we have been connected with Achievers International and after a certain discussion we have been successfully joined one secondary school here in Pangani and the other from Georgia, Atlanta, USA.

We still have a number of stories to tell from December but let me end here for a while. Then we shall continue.

Allowed to comment.

Kamburuta, Ally Said

Coordinator