Libby Arnold from the Rotary Club of Kirstenbosch, has written to thank School Aid for their wonderful and generous shipments.

These shipments have now been distributed to a large number of schools, literacy and educational NGO's, via other Rotary Clubs, to the delight of the recipients.

There had been a number of problems when the container arrived in Cape Town, including a mighty storm on the docking day,  a customs problem and the storage area, they planned to use, no longer being available!  Despite all these problems, and  the books were eventually released and sent to Johannesburg, Mossel Bay, Oudtshoorn, Worcester, Hermanus, Stanford and the greater Cape Town area.

The recipients of the books and educational materials were selected very carefully and sent to those they considered would make the most effective use of them. These recipients were of varying ages and abilities. They included under-resourced primary schools with basic libraries, pre-schools and creches, a safe house in a squatter camp, a special learning needs primary school, a home for the disabled, grassroots educational centres in East Cape and Johannesburg, Church Mission schools in Malawi, other Rotary Clubs for their literacy programmes and specialist maths tutoring NGO's. Some of the books that were not deemed suitable for a particular school, due to poor literacy levels and different curricula, were then passed onto other schools, so there was as little waste as possible.

There were some incredible surprises amongst the boxes of books - new Usborne activity books, high quality teaching aids, toy and craft kits, building toys, drama dress up outfits and good quality musical instruments.  These specialist items are to be donated to some suitable specialist organisations for the underprivileged, such as dance, drama and music schools.  The fantastic high quality literacy games and teaching aids are truly appreciated as the government schools do not have these.  The fun games will entice pupils into libraries and the specialist literacy or number teacher aids have gone to specialist tutors in these fields.

Libby has sent her sincere thanks to all those who have been involved in this process, including the donors, School Aid volunteers and the people that help with the distribution.