SEGA’s Library – A Place to Study, Read and Play

A Closer Look at One of Students’ Favorite Campus Spaces

SEGA’s library is one of the school’s most visited and loved spaces on campus. It provides a study space, a quiet place for leisure reading, games  and academic resources for students’ classes. The library was built several years ago as part of SEGA’s multi-purpose building. This building was funded by a USAID ASHA grant and was open for use in January 2015. Since its opening the library has grown significantly and become more and more organized. 

Students use the library after class hours during their free time to read, study or to play games, but for the most part, they go to borrow books. The library has a variety of books including resource books relevant to students’ academic classes, English and Swahili novels that students are tested on during the national exams, and story books / novels that they read for pleasure. In order to encourage library use and leisure reading, SEGA started a school-wide reading session on Wednesday mornings where all students read for 30 minutes every week. This designated reading time encourages girls to borrow a story book from the library regularly! At each morning assembly, one student is randomly selected to talk about the book she is reading. 

The majority of books in the library have been donated by generous volunteers and have consequently been organized by subject and reading level. Grace, SEGA’s librarian, categorizes new books and implements a check-out system and library rules for students and staff. The library has grown so much in the recent years we’ve had to add more cabinets and shelves as the number of books has increased exponentially! 

We are so happy that our students have a wealth of informative and fun books to read at their fingertips. We look forward to seeing our library continue to grow and expand the minds of our students!