SAPESI Mobile Library Project News: Jan - June 2014

Free State Mobile Library service covers
33% of schools without school libraries
Free State has 1 300 schools, but 1 150 ofthese schools do not have functioning libraries.
Thanks to last year’s donation of 4 vehicles,
their Mobile Library fleet (11 in total, 2 buses at
each of their five district centres, with one
stand-by vehicle) have started to cover 382
schools, which is 33% of their no-school-libraryschools.
Each bus visits around 40 schools twice a term, once todeliver the books, and once to collect.

Motheo bus - Free State

This remarkable achievement is the result of a pilot Mobile Library operation by Free State’s DoE.
SAPESI is grateful for this accomplishment since it required a high level of support and dedication fromFree State Department of Education’s management headed by Education MEC Mr. P.H.I. Makgoe, andalso from their Mobile Library team.
We will continue to support Free State in their efforts to improve the quality of the operation e.g.
•10 starter school libraries donated by Biblionef, as the next step after the mobile library service•To cover bigger schools in the cities, and school hostels for farm school learners•Better usage of Libwin library computer programme with onboard notebook PCs for librarymanagement
For this achievement, numerous books have been donated by Sony group, and we would like to thankSony Japan and their subsidiary companies in the English speaking countries for their approximately
135,000 children’s books in total, new and second hand collected by them, as the result of thepartnership MOU signed between Sony corp. Free State DoE and SAPES in 2008..

Arrival of 6 additional Mobile Library buses
On June 29, the car-carrier “Sunshine Ace” of ourshipping partner MOL, arrived in Durban, transporting 6
mobile libraries namely 3 for Mpumalanga DoE, oneeach to Free State and Gauteng DoEs, and East Rand
NGO Ekufundzeni. The buses were delivered safely totheir destinations after a long and laborious custom
clearance process.
Sunshine Ace docking in Durban harbour

The South African embassy in Tokyo and SAPESI Japan
organized a departure ceremony on May 22 2014 in theembassy. This was, at the same time, in commemorationof 20 years of democracy in South Africa.
The ceremony was a great success with the presence ofvarious VIP guests and representation by Japanesenewspapers.
This Mobile Library project has been continuously
supported by successive RSA ambassadors to Japan - Dr.
Ben Ngubane, Mr. Gert Grobler, and currently Dr. Mohau Pheko.

Tokyo - departure
ceremony

Our supporters: MOL, Mitsui OSK Lines
MOL is one of the largest global shipping companies which
navigates for example numerous container boats, carcarriers, bulk cargo ships for coal, iron-ore and oil tankers,and LNG (liquid natural gas) carriers.
MOL has been transporting Mobile Library buses over years
from Japan to Durban at very special freight charges since
the beginning of the project.
Their Kasado Maru ship was the very first Japanese vesselCar-carrier Sunshine Ace at sea
which called in Cape Town in 1908 on its way to Brazil. A few
years later, in 1910, the Japanese consulate wasestablished in Cape Town. The two countries indeed have a long, good and well establishedrelationship.

Thank you, Mr. Jack Cohen
Mr. Jack Cohen, well-known ex-chairman of Tedelex and a prominentSouth African businessman, was helping SAPESI as our advisor, thus
leading his business friends. Sadly he passed away on 28 June 2014.
To lose a friend who has been extremely sympathetic to our cause, istruly sad and a great loss to us. We wish, with all our hearts, that hissoul will rest in peace.

Progress - Five Provinces
The Mobile Library of the so-called New Five provinces, namely theDoEs of Mpumalanga, Limpopo, North West, Northern Cape andEastern Cape, finally have commenced to visit schools, and wewould like to assist them as much as we can.
We thank our sponsors for their continued support and all Mobile
Library teams (now in all provinces) for their hard work anddedication.

Tad, Tadashi Hasunuma
Director: SAPESI Mobile Library Project

J Cohen at the SAPESI’s Heart toHeart breakfast meeting - June2012