Youth join literacy activities in Kayonza on Sept. 29.

We’re happy to report a great turnout for our Rwanda Reads event at our Kayonza YEGO Youth Centre Library on Sept. 29.

Grace Rwanda sponsored a literacy event in the town and supplied book bags as prizes to encourage young student readers as they participated in literacy activities.

We’re happy to be a part of building literacy capacity in Rwanda and creating a culture of reading!

In other news, two students here at home at UBC have joined Grace Rwanda as interns.

Silvana Romero and Aiman Ragab are motivating their fellow university students to donate books to Grace Rwanda’s upcoming shipment of books to Rwanda, with the goal of stocking two new youth libraries in the country.

The shipment is set to go out later this fall. Romero and Ragab are leading book drives on campus and fundraising for our latest project. We appreciate their enthusiasm and effort! Check out their campaign on Toonies4Change.org in the coming month.

Co-founder Elizabeth Johnson and President Paul Johnson were also in Kelowna recently speaking at the Calvary Chapel. They were met with heartfelt support for their mission and goal of setting up a Grace Rwanda office in Kigali this fall and stocking the new libraries with books.

The deadline is looming, so if you have books to donate or can pledge financial assistance to make this shipment a reality, please contact us at info@gracerwanda.org.

You can get regular updates on our work by following @GraceRwanda, liking us on Facebook, adding us in your Google+ circle, and watching our videos on YouTube.

Grace Rwanda co-founder Elizabeth Johnson is on her way back from Rwanda and she reports that the team made great strides. Not only did they set up our second library and distribute school books, but the team also took steps to create a network of literacy partners to build an even stronger foundation for the future.

On March 20th Grace Rwanda partnered with Rwanda Library Services to hold a workshop educating a dozen local NGOs and government departments about literacy promotion and library outreach strategies that could be used to improve youth reading skills, especially in rural areas. Grace Rwanda was happy to be involved in facilitating this collaboration. We’re working together to create a national literacy movement!

Elizabeth also reports that the March 15th opening of the Kayonza YEGO youth centre community library drew incredible support from the community, and earned the attention of local dignitaries who are getting behind our cause.

More than 500 people attended, including two members or parliament, the mayor of Kayonza, the director of Rwanda’s Library Service and delegates from two government ministries, in addition to district officials, business executives and leaders from local churches and schools.

To mark the occasion, two local soccer teams played a demonstration match wearing jerseys donated to Grace Rwanda by the Canadian national women’s soccer league. We shipped 45 boxes of jerseys in all: we’ll donate two team sets to every youth centre library we open in future. Everyone was thrilled with the library, which was stocked with 2,000 books, Rotary-donated dictionaries, 10 e-readers and four laptops.

We’re building incredible support in Rwanda for Grace Rwanda’s vision of creating a new generation of readers. Thanks so much for being part of making our dream a reality.

You can get regular updates by following @GraceRwanda, liking us on Facebook, adding us in your Google+ circle, and watching our videos on YouTube.