Member Connections

Volunteer to be a mentor with Bridges to Pals
Bridges to Pals, a program of the Mental Health Association of Montgomery County (MHA), is a one on one mentoring program that matches volunteers with youth ages 5-17 in Montgomery County. The key goal of Bridges to Pals is to provide these youth with someone who can be a positive role model and help boost their self-esteem and confidence. The program also aims to provide youth with positive problem solving skills and to expand and develop their interests by engaging in fun and interesting activities.

Prior to becoming a volunteer, each potential volunteer, who must be age 21 or older must complete the following:
· a short and long application form
· provide 3 references (personal and professional)
· an FBI background check ($15.25)
· driving record through the MVA and proof of auto insurance($9)
· attend a 3 hour training session held at MHA

After careful consideration and discussion, you will be matched with a youth who has similar interests and who lives within a reasonable distance. Once you are matched, the program requires a commitment of one year’s participation with meetings for a minimum of 4 hours per month, as well as phone contact during the weeks you do not meet. It is up to you and your Little Pal to decide what activities you will do, just try to keep the activities at low cost and extra fun (bowling, movies, play sports and board games, etc.). We also organize 3 activities per year where all Big and Little Pals are invited to a special event just for them.

Please feel free to email me at jtierney@mhamc.org or call, 301-424-0656 x 523, if you have any additional questions. Thank you for your interest in the Bridges to Pals Program and I look forward to hearing from you soon!

For three weeks in August, 2010, my colleague Sandi Hannibal and I (we are the two librarians at Norwood School in Bethesda, Maryland) visited Mwika, Tanzania, a small village on the slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro. We were there to work in the Mwika Community Library which was started with books from the World Bank Book Project by former Norwood parents Young and Sadikiel Kimaro. The Kimaros recently retired from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund and moved back to Mwika, Kimaro’s birth place, to put in action the experience gained during their careers. Clean water projects, a proper market place, and support for girls’ education are ongoing initiatives of the Kimaros, but their first goal, made possible by the World Bank Book Project, was to provide a library for the people of Mwika, a place where books are extremely rare and even textbooks are shared and not allowed to leave the school.
Opening day of the Mwika Community Library in 2009 was celebrated with joy and blessings. Thanks to the World Bank shipment which the Kimaros had underwritten and some additional modest donations from Norwood, there were at least a few books in every major discipline as well as a selection of classic literature and children’s books. The one room library is a beautiful space – a former chapel donated by the Lutheran Church. A local village carpenter built the attractive and sturdy bookcases, tables, and shelves. There is no Internet access in Mwika and the library has only one old desktop computer, but it turns out that an Excel spreadsheet works just fine as a searchable library catalog. Anenci and Ebenezer, two Mwika residents, were hired as librarians. Delightful and dedicated, both with secondary school educations, neither had any library experience. In fact, no one in Mwika had ever been in a library before and everyone was thrilled at this new addition to their community, even if not quite sure what to do with it. Several men began to come in every day to read the newspapers available in Mwika for the first time through the library, and some students came regularly to do homework and browse the shelves, but the Kimaros knew there must be strategies to increase library use.
Always actively pursuing ways to help their community, the Kimaros proposed to Dick Ewing, Norwood’s headmaster, that Norwood’s librarians come and work in Mwika for a while. The experience was remarkable as the Norwood and Tanzanian librarians worked together to make the library fit the needs of the local community. The Kimaros timed our visit to coincide with a new World Bank shipment of books for Tanzania. The new books for Mwika enhanced the existing collection in important ways. We cataloged as fast as we could, anxious to fill in empty places on the shelves. We rearranged the collection to be more user friendly and to adhere to standard library practices. We worked alongside Anenci and Ebenezer, explaining library practices, creating a biography section, and dividing the newly expanded children’s collection into picture books and early readers. A separate Swahili section was started with books purchased with funds from a Norwood Used Book Sale. Before our visit, the Mwika librarians felt their primary responsibility was to protect the books – perfectly understandable where books are so rare. Yet by the end of our visit, Anenci and Ebenezer were greeting library patrons and asking what they could help them find. Visitors were intrigued by the new library displays showcasing books on particular topics. More children came in to browse the new World Bank books in the bigger and better organized children’s section and the brand new young adult section. Library use has surged to an average of 100 patrons a day and Anenci and Ebenezer report proudly that frequently every chair is full.
Lots of brainstorming took place during our three week visit as together we hatched future plans to offer library programs such as children’s story hours that will draw on the story-telling traditions of the region while bringing in new patrons and encouraging a love of literature. Offering adult education classes is another goal that will support the community and expand the outreach of the library. Though open for only about two years now, the Mwika Community Library has already had a large and positive impact on its community, thanks to the donations of the World Bank Book Project and the vision, determination, and hard work of the Kimaros and the two local librarians.
While in Tanzania the Kimaros and the two Norwood librarians delivered several boxes of books from the Tanzania World Bank shipment to the Vunjo School, a secondary school in a small town about one hour’s drive from Mwika. We spent the day at the school talking with teachers and meeting students. It was a highlight of the trip to see how eagerly the teachers tore into the boxes to see what books had arrived. They all hoped to find resources to use in their classes. The Vunjo School does have a library which consists of a few small bookcases holding books that appear to be from the 1950s. Most were tattered and musty. As we scanned the shelves, we could not imagine that many of those books were useful to today’s Vunjo students and we understood why the teachers were so thrilled by this shipment of books from the World Bank. One teacher made a special impression on me. He teaches computer classes at Vunjo – primarily keyboarding and word processing – to prepare his students for the day when the Internet arrives. This young teacher searched in vain through the World Bank boxes, hoping to find some computer books. I explained to him that most computer information is now available online since computer books become obsolete almost as soon as they are published. This was a hard thing for him to hear. His dedication to his students was palpable. Fortunately, many other teachers did receive valuable resources in the World Bank shipment. History teachers were especially thrilled by the selection and math teachers were excited to discover some Mathematics, Algebra, and Geometry text books in the World Bank boxes.
It is not easy to know what books to send to schools and libraries half way around the world. Of course, it would be wonderful to send only books in good condition – and that has been the standard the Kimaros have used in choosing books for Tanzania. It is also important to weed out books that have inaccurate or seriously obsolete information. However, having seen the condition of the few books available at Vunjo Secondary School and the eagerness of the teachers to get their hands on any books that can support their curriculum makes it clear that in some circumstances books in less than perfect condition and even old textbooks are quite welcome. As a librarian, I certainly feel it is important to promote literature but, at least in northern Tanzania, modern young adult novels, for instance, are not a priority. Non-fiction books, classics, encyclopedias, dictionaries, atlases, textbooks, and picture books for children seem to be the most in demand. In Tanzania, non-fiction books with pictures are especially valued because not all teachers and secondary students are completely fluent in English.
From what I saw in Tanzania, the World Bank Book Project is a remarkable and important resource whose positive impact on schools and communities is too great to be measured. When a friend who is a member of the Kenyan Parliament heard what I had been doing in Tanzania, he asked me if a library can be started for his Maasai constituents in northern Kenya. I told him that I was certain this could be accomplished – all because of the World Bank Book Project. Thank you for your efforts.

By Zena Soudah