Isa Maganda, Nambi Sseppuuya Community Resource Centre (NSCRC), Uganda Driving Community Development Our centre is located on a village called Igombe, Jinja District, approximately twenty kilometers on Jinja- Kamuli road. We serve a total population of 22,047. There are 35 primary schools and 18 secondary schools, but the drop out rate is high. People are mainly engaged in agriculture, sugarcane and coffee growing. Research shows 65% of the population is literate. Isa Maganda, Nambi Sseppuuya Community Resource Centre (NSCRC), Uganda

Community Issues: Illiteracy Ignorance Poverty and disease Solution: Education and training Provision of reading and research materials The centre was established to fight illiteracy, ignorance, poverty and disease through education, training and provision of reading and research materials. Goals: To contribute to the development of Buwenge Sub-County and the country as a whole by acquiring, stocking and making reading materials available to both the young & older persons in and out of school. To organize and facilitate training and income generating activities in order to empower members of the community and live decent lives. To contribute to the development of the culture of reading through functional literacy activities.

Make up space Developing youth talents and preventing them from early child pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases, through acting & performing educative music, dance and drama In Buwenge sub-county, when children are on holidays, they are always found loitering, involved in immoral behavior, getting into drug abuse, get unwanted adolescent pregnancies and 30% acquire Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), AIDS. I am trying to change this by helping children get busy during vacation, support talent development, prevent early child pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases, AIDS through acting & performing educative music, dance and drama. They also read a story book and then organize a play from the story. This has encouraged the children to read many books and the level of literacy is increasing.

Themes that children play Ignorance Poverty Early marriage Unwanted pregnancies Competition for love Cultural conflicts Drug abuse Corruption

Christmas celebration Festival 821 people, 1/3 of them had never visited the library before I organized a get together Christmas celebration festival on the 25th Dec. 2017 for the entire community. It attracted 571 children and 250 adults and out of the 821 people, 32% had never visited the library before.

Impact Awareness of dangers related to early pregnancies, early marriage and sexually transmitted diseases Learning to express themselves in public Source of income

Basic computer literacy Free computer training for school children Children learn to type Create flyers Use the internet to search for information (for school projects and relevant to their age) Play online games to improve their thinking skills

Advanced computer class 1 month certificate in main computer apps Pursing a 1 month Certificate in Computer Applications which include: Ms Word Ms Excel Ms Power point Database Ms Desktop Publisher & Data communication/Internet

Secondary students’ computer class Students learn to search online, type and create documents using graphics Students learn to search for information online, to type, create documents by using graphics

Impact Children improve school work and projects Students improve research skills online and get confidence to aim for higher education Adult learners improve employability, business communication and social contacts

Outreach Promoting reading and writing among those in schools, prisons and hospitals

Impact of innovation Innovative services attracted new library users and popularized our centre to the surrounding communities Hard to reach community members are given equal access to books and reading at no cost