Book fair at schools

As a part of my volunteer work in Malawi I've been visiting some primary and secondary schools to make a book fair for the students and teachers. First I go to the school to talk to the principal about DAPP (Development Aid from People to People) and the Book Shop Project, and I ask to the principal if it's possible to make a book fair in the school. All the schools have accepted this idea of make a book fair. Actually I think it's a really good thing for the students to improve their education because the schools in Malawi are very poor in libraries. It's very rare you find a library in the schools. Furthermore, I've noticed that the Malawian students like to read books. It's mazing to see how many children come all together when they see the books displayed on tables or even on the floor. They can buy the book because the prices are accessible for them. The children books and junior novels are K50 (about US$0.34). It means less then a bus ticket, K70, from my house to the city centre that takes about 15 minutes.

This picture shows the book fair at Baptist Primary School that I went last week. I went on Tuesday and it was supposed to be only that day. But the children asked to go one more time so I went there also on Thursday.


These are students from St. Theresa Private School that I went on last Friday. At this school I had a different experience. The children were very excited to see me, a “white person”, at their school. When they had first seen me giving hand to a child all of them came together to also greet me giving hands. They liked to touch me, mainly my hair and my bracelet. There was a moment that I needed to hide myself into the teachers' room because it was really a lot of children pushing and touching me. This was similar to a experience that I had when I came to a rural community to give gifts to children.

This book fair was at Kalibu Academy that I went on this Monday. This is a private school that follows the University of Cambridge curriculum, as I saw on their sign. This school is a rich school and it's different from the others that I have visited because it's very clean and has a very good class rooms like we can find in Brazil or Europe.

This book fair was in Rose Garden Primary and Secondary School that I went on Wednesday. The children were very happy to enjoy the book fair. I saw that they have a library but it's completely empty. I asked to a teacher where the books were. He told me that before there were some books but now the library is under reconstruction. But he didn't tell where they put the books.