Dictionary Project

Posted by Graham Burt 
on Aug 07, 2014
 

60 000 English language dictionaries were officially handed over to the Ministry of Education & Skills Development on the morning of 7 August 2014 at a brief ceremony in their conference room. President John Cunliffe presented a dictionary the Assistant Minister of Education, Keletso Rakhudu.

The dictionaries will be handed out to junior secondary school students. These dictionaries will become the personal property of the students to encourage them to take proper care of these paperback volumes.

   

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PRESIDENT JOHN CUNLIFFE ADDRESSES  THE GATHERING          

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PRESIDENT JOHN CUNLIFFE PRESENTS  A DICTIONARY TO THE ASSISTANT MINISTER
   
ImageASSISTANT MINISTER KELETSO RAKHUDU THANKS ROTARY  
 

 

 

 

 

The project was conceived in late 2010 by Pam Shelton, a US citizen and founder of the Botswana Book Project and Rotarian Brad Vogt of the Rotary Club of Bricknell, South Florida, USA. Rotarian Brad enlisted the support of the Rotary Club of Dunwoody, Georgia, USA.

Pam, who had been assisted by the Rotary Club of Gaborone in the past, made contact with the club to a view that we handle the Botswana end of the project. The researching the feasibility of the project and how the dictionaries were going to be distributed took up all of 2011.

In 2012 with a project documentation the Rotary clubs approached the Rotary Foundation for a Global Grant to help cover the costs of the project. Many revisions were made to the project document before the Global Grant application was finalized and submitted to the Rotary Foundation in the September by the Rotary Club of Gaborone.

The Global Grant application was approved in mid-2013 after all Rotary Foundation’s queries had been satisfied. The total value of the approved project was USD 62 000.00. The funding included contributions from Districts 6900 and 9400 as well as the Rotary clubs.

The order was placed with a publisher in India and in February 2014 the container load of dictionaries arrived in Gaborone. The container was cleared by the Rotary Club of Gaborone and the contents were delivered to the warehouse of the Ministry of Education and Development Skills.

(THANKS TO RTN CHRIS SHARP WHO SUPPLIED THE INFORMATION)

     
Image THE DICTIONARY                  Image(Left to Right) RTN MOMPATI NWAKO, RTN CHIS SHARP, PRESIDENT JOHN CUNLIFFE Image