The Kala Peace Library is a thriving center of educational resources and activities in the Kala Camp community. The library stacks are home to over 2,000 titles in French,Swahili, and English ranging from novels to reference documents to books on geography, history and science. Kala Peace Library also offers members the ability to listen to over 200 compact disc recordings of African artists on portable CD players within the library. Magazines, newspapers, games, and puzzles are also available for library visitors to use in the reading room. During the week, librarians offer resume and letter writing classes for adults that help them secure employment when they repatriate, and on weekends librarians host a storytelling hour for children and movie viewings for all library members, young and old. The Kala Peace Library aims to reach all members of the Kala Camp community, and to increase attendance from women and youth especially.
During forced displacement, education systems and services are often among the first to fall by the wayside. Outside of basic primary education, refugee camps rarely provide residents with the resources and space to enable refugees of all ages to continue learning, improve their literacy, and explore the subjects that interest them. In addition to providing many books and resources, the Kala Peace Library functions as a community center where everyone in the Kala Camp community can come to share ideas and learn together.
The Kala Peace Library benefits the adults, youth, and young children who visit the library stacks, use the reading room, and enroll in classes and library activities everyday. As refugees repatriate back to the Democratic Republic of Congo, they will carry the knowledge and skills they gain with them, thus helping to revitalize their home communities.
• Holding daily library hours during which camp residents read books, check out books, and listen to CDs from the music library
• Conducing regular workshops for groups of adult women and adult men in handwriting, resume writing, and letter writing
• Providing weekly storytelling activities for children in the Kala Camp
• Holding weekly viewings of educational movies related to science and the history of the DR Congo
• Offering a women’s reading circle through which women read and discuss literature together
• Encouraging increased visits from women through “Women’s Wednesdays” that limit use of the library stacks and reading room to women only
• To increase literacy and encourage educational attainment
• To help Kala Camp residents find employment upon their return to the DR Congo by equipping them with enhanced literacy and writing skills
• To expand library membership by 300 members annually
• To increase women’s use of library resources
• To raise cultural awareness among Kala Camp children about the DR Congo and its history
*Because of budget constraints, FORGE has temporarily scaled back the scope of many of its projects. The project descriptions and budgets seen here describe the project's typical operations, and might therefor not reflect the current situation on the ground. Once sufficient funding is secured for each project, its operations will be expanded back to those reflected in this description and budget.