In its quest to develop quality leadership through good reading culture, the Rotary Club of Omole-Golden District 9110 has distributed story books and held an interactive reading sessions with pupils of Ojodu Primary school Lagos.
The move according to the Club is to encourage and activate reading culture and basic learning skills among the young ones.
The President of the Club, Rotarian Favour Madu explained that the initiative is one of those projects under basic education and literacy, which is the Rotarian literacy program in Primary schools.
She mentioned that grooming good leaders begins with reading and searching for information which according to her will make them better individuals and in the long run, useful to the society at large.
“As we have in Rotary calendars, the month of September is for basic education and literacy and the District 9110 decided to focus our attention to the reading culture of children at the public primary school, where we want to catch them young and inculcate that habit of reading, because leaders are readers,” she said.
She stressed that deficiencies identified during the reading class would be improved upon with the support of the State Universal Basic Education board and teachers who were well represented at the event and the Club would also carry out intermittent monitoring on the children.
Other projects
Besides the reading activities of the Club, the President also identified another school project which would soon be delivered for public use.
According to her, “we have Ajuwon high school where Science Laboratory for Physics and Biology is already set up and that will be commissioned very soon.
Just as we are grooming the leaders and trying to tutor them on how to read and excel, we also want them to be able to perform qualitative experiments at the laboratory so that when they go out there they would have gone through so many processes of learning.”
She added that there are other projects running that the Club believe would create a lasting change that is needed for educational development and individual capacity of the children.
Positive impact
The Project coordinator, Rotarian Titilope Odelola was optimistic that such initiative would create a positive impact and develop robust relationship with the children as the Club will continue to assist to further develop reading skills among the students.
“The idea of reading class with the pupils was an interesting session. It reminds me of my growing up days when I was being assisted by my father who guided me to learn the art of reading. Book reading gets you exposed to numerous places and objects and it was an opportunity for the children to have the chance to learn morals and ideas from other societies”, she said.
She however called on government and stakeholders in education to encourage the concept of Libraries within the classroom and for people to donate books voluntarily in order to encourage reading culture among the young ones.
Appreciation
The Students who were elated to have been engaged in such a reading atmosphere commended the facilitators for such gesture which would help to enhance their reading skills.
Emeka Anayo and Anthony Onyeshi showered encomium on the Club for the story books, while Ilelaboye Elijah affirmed that the book would enable him to learn new words.
Ibrahim Mary who cannot wait for a replication of another reading class, said although, she would like to be an accountant, the story books would assist immensely to improve her reading skills.
Nneka Ukachukwu
