Book donation to benefit more than 800 students of Nabua Secondary

More than 800 students of Nabua Secondary School will benefit from a book donation given by the Embassy of the United States of America yesterday.

Staff of the embassy supplied three boxes full of books for the ill-equipped school library, which also catered to students of the Matua programme.

School vice-principal Ansu Singh thanked the embassy staff for the timely donation, which she said would assist students with their research work.

“Our students rely heavily on our library for textbooks since they are not from well off families and do not have access to electronic devices and internet connectivity,” Ms Singh said.

“With these books they (students) will learn a lot more and we are grateful the books are reference books, which are expensive and are needed by our students.”

U.S Public Diplomacy Officer Rebecca ArcherKnepper said the books were procured by the Asia Foundation that worked in partnership with the embassy to bring the books into the country. “We received nearly 2500 books from the Asia Foundation and some of the universities have got more depending on the level of the books, the secondary schools are getting books more suited to their level,” Ms Archer-Knepper said.

“Due to COVID-19 restrictions, we have not been able to distribute the remaining books until now.”

She said the embassy had worked with the Asia Foundation for several years to distribute the books to about 25 different organisations like schools and institutions that had libraries.

More book distributions expected in the coming days.

Photo: Fonua Talei From left: Embassy of the United States of America public diplomacy officer Rebecca Archer-Knepper, school typist Salote Sainianaivalu, head of English department Rajesh Lingam, and librarian Veronika Movik during the book donation on June 16, 2020.