BWB: The progress thus far

By Shiva Bala

Education plays a pivotal role life and culture of the country. According to National Education Statistics, literacy rate in Sri Lanka is 92%, higher than that is expected for a third world country.

Today, there are approximately 9,830 public schools serving close to 4,030,000 students, all around the island but most of these schools do not possess library facilities. As Rotaractors our aim is collect books and donate it to the schools which are in lack of books.

This is Project BWB (Build with Books), the project undertaken by the Rotaract club of IIT under the presidency of Rtr. Wishwa Perera, chaired by Chairperson Rtr. Visharathan Kugamoorthy and Co-Chair Person Senthuran Jeyakumar.

This project has been envisioned and put to action by our fellow IIT Rotaractors and the newly-joined Leo Club, working with an aim to build a country with a 100% literacy rate and make Sri Lanka the first of its kind in the world.

First and foremost we announced and initiated the idea of BWB at the second installation ceremony of the Rotaract Club of IIT where presentations and the possibility of this project were presented to the available audience by our Chairperson.

Next, we moved on the second phase of the project, collecting the books from suburban areas of Colombo. We started off with Wellawatte, where we were able to collect 2,000 odd books in a minimum of three hours with the help of the Rotaractors of IIT, these books were then donated to a school in Nittabuwa located in a very hostile location from the town who were in dire need of books and stationery materials, going out of the project we are looking forward to provide the school children with shoes.

After this successful phase we reached Colombo and were received with happy news that Tagged magazine would be one of our official media partners for the event, which is one of the rapidly growing media sources amidst teens.

After a few dire weeks of collecting books, we reached Leo Club for their help. Without too many questions, Leo Club members were happy to join hands; then this project was converted to a joint project done by both clubs.

During the stages of negotiating and meetings, two schools in Jaffna were requesting help and our Chairperson immediately piled up out of the stocks of books left and managed to send 300 odd Tamil books and more books were packed up ready to leave to Jaffna. As the Chairperson said: “The smile on the face of the children who received us showed me the necessity for education and how much many people are dying for it.”

Once back in the city of Colombo several other campaigns were done. With the help of the Brandix team we set up a campaign in the area of Ingiriya, which was a great hit and then the regular campaigns done in Colombo suburbs with Leo Club provided us with great publicity and brought in many books which were usable. So far in this year-long project we have come across many students and schools who have requested help, have been provided with help and with BWB the search for education continues.

You can donate books in all mediums, used or new, story books, colouring books, educational books and exercise books for kids from kindergarten to advanced levels. All donations can be made by handing over or posting them to IIT Main Campus #57, Ramakrishna Road, Colombo 6, Sri Lanka. For more information please contact Rtr. Visharathan Kugamoorthy on 0779018417 or Rtr. Wishwa Perera on 0772364100 or email [email protected]. You can also track our progress on www.buildwithbooks.info.

Let’s build our nation with books. Join ‘Build with Books’.

(The writer is Editor, RCIIT.)