September 9, 2019 was the first countrywide D.E.A.R. (Drop Everything And Read) Day throughout The Gambia. At the recent workshop held for the PCV Regional Literacy Representatives a plan was developed for implementing a day to emphasize the importance of literacy and demonstrating how much fun reading can be. The PCV community plans to have D.E.A.R. Day become an annual event.

In my role as Media Team Coordinator I posted some of these photos on the PCTG Facebook and Instagram accounts. I received many great photos from D.E.A.R. Day and decided to share them with my blog subscribers. Most Gambians don’t read for pleasure, but the PCV community would like to see that change by holding events in and outside of the school setting to encourage reading.

Alexa Harrison, Education Volunteer in the URR, said: “For D.E.A.R. Day, I opened my  doors to any child in the area that wanted to come look through books from my library. I had 15+ kids stop by to read. I read three books including the story ‘Fatou, Fetch the Water’ which takes place in a Gambian village similar to mine, and helped my host brother do a read aloud to the younger children as well. They loved it and want to do it again tomorrow. My hut was packed all morning with kids coming to hang out. It was baby Ruby’s first time ‘reading’ – looking at pictures and flipping the pages.”

Games and skill building exercises are important activities for building literacy competence. Leah Rattunde, Education Volunteer in the URR, said: “The photo of me holding the blue card is of us playing the game ‘Zip – Zap – Zup’. The photo of us playing with the pink cards is a letter-sounding bingo type game in the Mandinka language. The last photo is of a group of kids working together to solve a maze.”

Colleen Booth, Health Volunteer in the NBR, was a classroom teacher in the USA before joining Peace Corps. She said: “On D.E.A.R. Day a variety of literacy activities were done, parents read to their children, children read on their own and we played literacy games to practice sight words and vocabulary.”

I arrived in The Gambia with a bag full of books my friend Carol Christ put together for me. I love to read and wanted to share books with the people in the country I was going to live in for the next two years. I have read the books many times to the kids in my compound, and given some away for birthdays or religious holidays. I plan to distribute the remaining books in my library before I return home, to fulfill my goal of fostering the love of books with my Gambian family.

“There are many little ways to enlarge your child’s world. Love of books is the best of all.”
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis