Lubuto Library Project’s Zambian Language Literacy Project

The Lubuto Library Project was one of 12 groups chosen from several hundred applicants worldwide to be awarded a grant from EIFL’s Public Library Innovation Project. EFIL received funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to encourage innovation with information technology in public libraries. 

 

Jane Kinney Meyers, President of the Lubuto Library Project and Mike Lee, of Sugar Labs and One Laptop Per Child presented the Lubuto Library Project, demonstrated some of its results and discussed its impact. Recognizing the critical need for children to learn to read in their first language, and the need to preserve Zambian culture, the Lubuto Library Project works to acquire and make available traditional Zambian stories. Lubuto libraries reach out-of-school children and helps them learn to read using read-aloud and storytelling programs.

 

Youth who had been using the One Laptop Per Child XO laptops in Lubuto libraries and experienced Zambian reading teachers have both been trained in the OLPC application E-toys and now work each week to create early reading programs for children in seven Zambian languages. The project creators use six XO 1.5 laptops, which were granted to Lubuto Libraries by the OLPC Foundation, however the open source reading programs can also run on other platforms. Thus, in addition to being made available to Lubuto Library users on XO laptops the programs will be posted on the Lubuto Library Project website to inspire the creation of similar programs in other African countries and languages.