From Otahuhu’s bulletin: Books for Children in Tonga — Project report by Pat Taylor and Jeanette Drysdale
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For some years Nuku’alofa Rotary has been assisting with books for Tongan schools. These books have come from Rotary Clubs and other sources. The assistance of US Peace Corps Tonga and their volunteers was sought to help sort books and distribute them to schools. While this has added to school libraries the exercise identified the need for more books using local themes and focused at a level relevant to the reading skills of Tongan primary students. Many books sorted as ‘primary’ from Australia and NZ were better suited for Tongan secondary schools. Over the years, these have been distributed to secondary schools, where good use has been made of them.
From this partnership, the idea of using local authors and artists was developed. This resulted in the Sight Word Book Program as a joint partnership between the Peace Corps in Tonga and Tupou Tertiary Institute in Tonga. The programme is now well established ...
The program is now well established with an increasing range of titles available for schools throughout the Kingdom. The program creates Tongan literacy materials for distribution in Tongan primary schools. The materials focus on emergent literacy, sight words, English grammar, reading com-prehension, and other aspects of English literacy. Other materials include lesson plans, large format readers for instructor-led read aloud, and one-page readers for take home reading. Support is also provided to teachers to help them use this material effectively. Texts and illustrations are sourced from local Tongan artists and writers. Texts are prepared according to content and paralleled with the Tongan Ministry of Education and Training’s English curriculum.
This is a long term program that, as funding becomes available, is planned to last for many years. This will include developing further titles and also maintaining supplies at schools. Neither TTI nor PC, however, have the funds for the design and printing of these titles, and associated support material, so have developed links with a number of funding sources. Nuku’alofa Rotary has continued to support this work and mobilised funds from a number of partner Rotary Clubs.
Tropical Cyclone Gita damaged many schools and disrupted activities. Some titles were printed prior to the cyclone. Unfortunately, there was some delay in use of the Rotary funds since the local company who had printed before was no longer able to provide this service and it took some time to find a suitable alternative.
In the 2017-2018 Rotary year, Otahuhu Rotary contributed $500 and this was matched with $500 from a District grant. The Rotary Club of Tauranga Sunrise who initiated the project, contributed $2730 and this was matched with a District 9930 Grant. Parnell Rotary (D9920) also contributed $500. The NZ$6960 covered the cost of 9 different books being written, illustrated and 1845 books being printed in the first print run. These were distributed as sets to 40 schools. An extra set of each title was retained for Tupou Tertiary Institute’s library on campus. A further 937 copies were printed in the second printing. Funds from an Australian Rotary Club will be used for a third printing.
This project has supported employment in the local community and their culture (books written in Tongan) and is making a difference to child literacy.