THE curtains on Friday came down on the University of Guyana (UG) Library’s thirteenth annual “Reading is Fun” programme when participants were presented with certificates and prizes at the institution’s library at its Turkeyen Campus.

The programme was sponsored by Courts Guyana Incorporated for the past eight years to date and will continue to receive sponsorship. The programme had formerly run on its own for five years until Courts decided to give full sponsorship.

Customer Experience Manager of Courts, Shona Barker, said that “we’re happy to say that we were able to obtain a remarkable number of students and also able to meet with this programme as it continues to grow.”

At the ceremony there was a list of items portrayed by the youngsters who were registered as part of the programme. These items include dramatic poetry, an acoustic, a song and a skit.

“Items on the programme are used to show what they have gained and developed and to aid us in an evaluation of how we can do it [the programme] better” pointed out Gwyneth George the Chief Librarian at the University of Guyana.

George also pointed out that the programme targets what they call ‘vulnerable children’. For the past 13 years they have been working with the Sophia community of children whose ages range from 5 to 13. “The basic thing is reading but the programme does not only center on reading” George said.

The other activities which the programme aid in are health tests, educational tours, computer knowledge and creative work such as poetry. The youngsters were placed into a number of groups and they worked alongside skilled resource individuals who are exemplary in literacy and reading. These individuals consisted of members of the library staff and members from the department of humanities and education. The programme which runs three days per week for three weeks registered approximately 50 youngsters this year.

However compared to the numbers from the first two years when it had just begun, there has been a decline.

Article adapted from: http://guyanachronicle.com/2017/08/05/curtains-come-down-on-ug-reading-programme