The library, in the Bolgatanga Municipality in the Upper East region,   was also provided with current and relevant reading materials for children, young adults and adults, has computers, television set, book shelves and some mattresses to allow the children to rest as well as create conducive environment for reading.

The Sumbrungu Community Library was established in 2004 by the Friends of Africa Village Libraries (FAVL), an American Charity Organisation aimed at improving literacy rate in rural African communities.

The other libraries are established at Sirigu in 2005 and Gowrie Kunkua in 2008 and the libraries are fully sponsored by FAVL.  CESRUD is a community based non-profit making organisation working in the areas of basic education and women livelihoods improvement, as well as youth entrepreneurial empowerment at Sumbrungu in the Bolgatanga Municipality, while Biblionef Ghana is an institution focused on creating conducive environment for less privileged children to have access to books and getting children to recognise that reading was indeed an enjoyable activity.

The support, which was funded by the Lions Club International, was in fulfilment of a pledge made to the people of Sumbrungu to refurbish and support the community library with books to encourage reading among pupils and students to promote quality education.

The event was also an occasion to assess the performance of the selected library teachers from the beneficiary schools, who were given library managerial training and refresher courses to handle the various school libraries.

Speaking at the event, Mrs Patricia Arthur, Executive Director of Biblionef Ghana, said quality education at the basic level was critical in shaping the academic performance of children, hence, the need to inculcate in them the habit of reading and making reading and learning materials available; and accessible to pupils in less privileged communities.

She said “the pupils at the basic schools are very intelligent and smart but they need our support, especially the stakeholders in education to assist them to improve their knowledge and compete with their colleagues in other schools.”

While commending the teachers for their efforts to help the pupils, the Executive Director indicated that the pupils needed to be encouraged to develop interest for reading.“Make a paradigm shift from the technical methods of reading, such as reading competition to reading activities that creates fun to make it enjoyable,” she added.

Mr Rex Asanga, the Executive Director of CESRUD who expressed gratitude to the sponsors for their efforts to encourage reading and improve on education in the community, said the intervention was a good move in salvaging the schools from the abysmal performances at the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) level.

He encouraged the teachers to give off their best to improve on the performance of the pupils by putting the facilities to good use to derive maximum benefit. Lioness Wia Huisman, a Netherlands Consultant of the Lions Club International who took the teachers through some training on how to make reading interesting to children, admonished them to cultivate the habit of writing about their immediate environment.