Our First Handover! (From Us to the Department of Education, with Love)

Today we had our very first handover!

As you may well know, we started our first cycle of phase two of our partnership with NGO giants Room to Read (whew, that was a mouthful!) in August 2016. We partnered with 12 schools to build 12 child libraries across 4 sub-districts (Lembor, South Lembor, Komodo and Mbeliling) across Manggarai Barat. However, the time has come for us to pass the torch over to the regional department of education (DoE).
So what kind of assistance would the DoE provide these schools? Well, on an inaugurated library our work can be broken down into two sections. The first is to ensure that the library management is done properly. We check to see if the log books are filled out properly, how the handle missing books and broken furniture, etc. The second is to see whether the reading activities are conducted properly and regularly. (DoE staff, if you’re reading this, if you expand the program to include more schools, we will love you forever.)

We hope the DoE continues to monitor these two things to ensure that the libraries we, Rainbow Reading Gardens, along with an untold amount of help from the teachers and parents, have worked so hard to build and maintain.

But wait! The many members of the DoE, even the head, has been replaced. Now there’s no one there who’s familiar with our program. What to do?

Thankfully we have a lot of help on our hands. Many of the schools from this cycle managed their libraries beautifully and we had the privilege of nominating not one but two libraries to be our standard bearers in the region, long after we’ve left. This is a huge responsibility, no doubt, but these schools, SDK St. Yosefa and SDI Namo, took the burden with open arms.

Additionally, during the handover event, we provided the DoE with a quick recap of our program and shared with them our support visit forms, as well as a report detailing what went well and what could be improved in each of the 12 libraries.

We held the event at the Manggarai Barat DoE office in Labuan Bajo. As is customary in Rainbow Reading Gardens’ events, we start the day out by listening to speeches from the DoE, from a representative of Room to Read, and from Nila Tanzil, the CEO of Rainbow Reading Gardens. Afterwards, we did a quick recap of the program, followed by the appointing of the two standard bearers. Finally, we closed the event off with a rousing discussion on the problems faced by each school in the past two years, and we brainstormed solutions to solve said problems.

All in all, it was a fun day.

To the DoE, thank you so much for your continued support, and we hope to hear all the news from you on these libraries, both good and bad.

To the 12 schools, thank you so much for all the help you’ve given us, we could not have done it without you! Let’s us continue to work on educating, nurturing and building these children, so that one day they may find success and happiness in life.

Note: here are the list of schools from Cycle 1 Phase 2
• SDK Wae Bangka
• SDI Beci
• SDI Kakor
• SDI Namo
• SDI Wiko
• SDK St Yosefa
• SDI Munting Kajang
• SDN Lancang
• SDI Macan Tanggar
• SDK Rekas i
• SDi Lengkong Kaca
• SDI Wae Moto