The Kenya National Library Service will stock more than 3,000 books and other reading materials at the Voi Public Library.
KNLS acting chief executive officer Jack Wafula on Saturday confirmed that the KNLS board will additionally add 13 computers at the facility’s ICT centre.
“We are targeting to fully stock the facility with more books so that schools can benefit. Knowledge is power, it should be made available to everyone,” Wafula said.
The library, funded by the National Government Constituency Development Fund (NG-CDF), is one of the region’s education flagship projects.
Last year. KNLS donated 5,000 books to the Library. with Voi NG-CDF donating 13 laptops for the ICT Hub section of the Library.
Wafula asked the community to embrace learning culture, noting that apart from boosting learning, the facility shall create employment as tens of residents shall take up jobs in the library. He further urged students to utilise the library to excel in their education noting that more revision materials shall be stocked.
“Libraries are very core in development of education. They offer knowledge to all walks of life and play a key role in growing County’s economy. Most of the materials here are medical, agriculture, literature and materials that the local community relate to,” he added.
KNLS chairman Katana Ngala said the much awaited recruitment of staff to work at the library shall commence next week with locals being given the first priority.
Ngala said, already, the KNLS board has approved the recruitment of six staff to work at the Library.
He said that the facility shall be officially opened by President Uhuru Kenyatta later this year.
Voi legislator Jones Mlolwa, who accompanied the KNLS board in the inspection tour, welcomed the move to employ locals and stock up the library.
Mlolwa noted that the additional materials to the library will enable locals get more employment opportunities through online platform like Ajira digital, that is currently training youths online.
Since inception, the ICT hub has seen hundreds of youth trained on access to online work, thus creating employment.
Librarian in charge Michael Kazungu said they have started outreach programmes to enable library user’s clubs at interiors schools access books and other reading materials.
“The constituency is vast and we want every student to benefit from the community library. We shall be taking books and laptops to interiors schools so that they can also read and improve their grades,” Kazungu said.
He pointed out that selected schools that had been listed in a trial reading programmes had shown improvement in their studies.
