Notebooks and pencils for Salio Village

 

We made a quick trip to Salio village today to take notebooks and pencils to the students. 

The school was closed as the students are preparing for exams but the books are in safe hands until the beginning of the next school year!

This made our 30th book distribution and we were so happy to be back in the very school where it all started!!

Thank you all

xxx

MERRY CHRISTMAS SELPELE + SALIO

 

Merry Christmas from the 100 Books Project.  To celebrate we sent a sack full of activity books to our friends in Selpele and Salio villages!  Unfortunately due to COVID-19 restrictions we were unable to deliver the books ourselves, but we think the teachers at the schools made excellent Santas! And we hope to be able to get back to visit these schools in the New Year

Thank you for your donations that continue to make these book deliveries possible!

BOOK DISTRIBUTION #24: SALIO VILLAGE

Today we were back where it all began.  Our 24th book distribution, and our first for 2020, we delivered some donations from Australia - 33 children's books, 26 notebooks, and 92 math and alphabet activity books.

In the past 4 years we have donated a total of 855 books to the students of Salio Village and we would LOVE to be able to build them a reading garden to enjoy the books in.  Stay tuned for more information.

Book Distribution 22: Salio Village

The 100BOOKS project was started in response to a request for books from a small village school in West Waigeo, Raja Ampat.  We distributed the first 200 books on Tuesday August 9^th, 2016.  Today we took another 60 books bringing the total Salio project to 747 books.

This school, being the inspiration for the project, will always hold a special piece of my heart.  The children and the teachers all have great respect for education and manage to do so much with so little.  Every time I visit I am reminded to be grateful and inspired to be better.

Thank you to Pak Oskar and all the students at Salio Village.

Book Distribution #21: Salio Village

We had some visitors this week and thought they might enjoy a trip to Salio village in order to better understand how the locals live.  We took along some notebooks (bought with your cash donations) and pencils (donated by my parents) to distribute to the village school.

Thank you all again for the ongoing support + donations.  Your help makes a big difference to kids studying in remote areas without access to resources.

xxx

Distribution 19: Salio Village

My brother came to visit the Raja Ampat Archipelago and we went to visit the first school the project worked with at Salio village. What a treat it was to be able to share this project with him!

The school is in excellent shape.  It is very well taken care of by Pak Oskar who has been there since our very first book distribution.  The students have worked together to make a garden and beautify the area and it was just lovely to get back there and see the progress.  There are more students in the classes than ever before which was also great to see.

We took some origami paper with us and spent some time folding with the kids, and, of course, we took a bag of books!

This makes the 19th book distribution in 3 years!  WOW!

Thanks everyone for making it possible.

xxx

Distribution 17 : Salio Village

We revisited the school that was the recipient of our first distribution of books today to take them some colouring books requested by the teachers of the preschool.

Book Distribution #7: Salio Village

I wasn't ready to leave Raja Ampat.  The move came as a great surprise and while I was excited about new adventures and all the possibilities change brings I also had a sense of leaving things unfinished.  In particular, the library projects I started there last year.

I am very grateful to have developed connections that have allowed me to continue these projects from afar.

Yesterday, our 7th book distribution happened in Salio village.  It's the first distribution in this project that has happened without me - my baby is all grown up!

I was so happy to get these photos full of so many familiar faces.  

Book Distribution #4: Salio Village

The kids ran out to greet me as soon as they saw me crossing the overgrown sporting field in front of their classrooms.  Some shouted "Bulai, bulai, bulai" and jumped up and down.  Others called me by name and skipped towards me their smiles flashing. 

It's been 6 weeks since I've been here and I'm not prepared for the decay.  This happens every time.  The shock the state of the school leaves me in... crumbling concrete and broken doors.  But there is joy here.  And learning.

When I walk into the classroom the first thing I see is books.  There is a whole shelf full of them.  They are scattered across desks.  In an untended classroom children sit with their new resources.  One boy traces a figure from a story book.  Another pours through an anthology of fabels.  A group of girls read to each other, laughing.  Another sings to herself softly as she turns the pages of a book full of photos of Africa.  I can't help but be moved by the experience and grateful for everything that was able to come together to make it happen.

I hand the heavy bag slung over my shoulder to the teacher.  Activity books this time.  There are 86 of them plus 5 wall charts to hang in the classroom.  He immediately pulls out a bundle of math books for early learners and starts handing them out to the year 1+2s.  The students take their workbooks with grateful smiles and then impress me with their English numbers.  

I spend some time with the students. We read and sing songs.  We play with snapchat filters.  They show me stuff - their favourite books, something they drew, the world globe, the hole in a hose outside that is shooting water out like a sprinkler and brings back memories of my own childhood running across the lawn through spouts of water on summer days... I can almost smell the damp grass and hear my dog barking with glee and confusion at the tremendous site before him.

I am exhausted by the time I get home.  These village visits always take it out of me.  I keep expecting to get used to it but I don't and am overwhelmed every single time.    

Scroll down to see photos from today's visit.  

Next week we're taking more books to Selpele Village.  Stay tuned!

Book Distribution #2: Salio Village

Last Tuesday I returned to Salio with another load of books.  This week the reaction, instead of being shock and awe, was sheer thrill and excitement.  There was so much energy in the room and I was, once again, totally overwhelmed.

The children were climbing over chairs and desks to reach the teacher who had a pile of books in his hands.  Upon receiving a book to look at the kids jumped up and down with joy.  Some of them danced.  It was quite amazing to watch.  I don't think I've ever seen such a display in response to a carton of books before.  

Once the children were all seated and calmed down with their books, they poured through the pages oohing and ahhing at pictures and following the words with their fingers.  They swapped books with their friends and looked over each others shoulders sharing the discoveries each page had to offer. I sat down with the kids and we went through every encyclopedia - birds, insects, inventors, sea creatures - and they pointed at pictures shouting names in Indonesian, asking what the names were in English so I told them and they repeated my words and laughed at each other in absolute glee.  They opened page after page of glossy photographs and made up stories of what they imagined was happening on each page, creating tales and telling each other and building on and expanding each others ideas.  They piled onto me armed with English picture books asking me to read to them so I did, book after book after book.

They were hungry for it.

Afterwards I took out paper and a packet of pastels and we learned the names of colours in English and we folded paper into boats and the children coloured in their boats, a class of 30 sharing a 12 pack of pastels with such care and respect for the pastels and for each other. 

Talk about putting things into perspective.

I left the island on Tuesday, as I did last fornight, exhausted and with a very full heart.

Here are some photos of the trip out to the island, the village and the kids.