Sipar is back to school : activities are back on track!
Despite the difficulties related to the health crisis, which has not spared Cambodia, our teams have been able to continue activities. We have adapted to the various lockdowns, effective travel restrictions in Cambodia or school closures, inevitably leading to the closure of libraries and reading corners installed within them.
Here is a quick overview of the news of our programs, which are starting again to the delight of our beneficiaries:
mobile libraries
- Our nine mobile libraries are back on the road and visit the villages they serve every day. Our beneficiaries are delighted to see our teams again, to enjoy the reading sessions and to be able to borrow books again.
- Ratanakiri's motorbike library has been replaced by the biblio tuk-tuk, thanks to the success of last December's crowdfunding campaign. She went to live a second life on the shores of Tonle Sap Lake, in order to take over from the library boat during the dry season.
- In the brick factories, two volunteer teachers took over from Sipar by installing reading corners open to children and even adults, a boon in this period of school closures, to fight against school dropout!
A new tuk-tuk library arrives in Phnom Penh to reach more beneficiaries in the slums of the capital. We'll tell you more soon!
youth empowerment program
16 Youth Clubs are still active, 11 tutoring classes are operating thanks to the volunteering of Cambodian and Cambodian youth who are also striving to continue their awareness campaigns in their communities. In particular, Sipar was able to equip three clubs with computers, paving the way for digital learning.
With the aim of developing volunteering and enabling young people in rural areas to be actors of their future, a new major program will soon begin, it will reach nearly 26,000 young Cambodians...
reading for all
-The construction of the school in Prey Peay in Kampot province is completed, as well as its library which is already open to small groups of children. The school management is committed to giving free access to the library, even if the school is forced to close due to Covid!
-26 factories out of 28 are open and reading corners are installed, books continue to be distributed so that they can also reach the children of the workers.
publishing
The publishing program is now able to finance itself thanks to the success of the sales of our various titles. Many titles will be released or reissued by the end of the year to meet the strong demand recorded since lockdowns and school closures!
Our team has worked on the publication of nine new titles for primary school children, thanks to funding from the World Bank. This partnership has also allowed Sipar to experiment with new means of marketing, the sale of these books having only been made via the social network Facebook.
We are delighted to witness the growing scale of the book sector, 20 years after the launch of this program, in a country where the publishing sector was almost non-existent! Thank you to everyone who made this possible.