Sinama Books for Sama Schools Book Sponsorship Program.

More Dreaming of a Program to Provide Sinama Books for Schools

Not every one that should be using the Sinama books we are producing will be able to buy them. Maybe the price is still too prohibitive or maybe getting a budget for books in a minority language is something that school administration cannot prioritize. Another problem is that the heartlands of the Sama are not the easiest places to access or to run a successful book selling business. As a part of our goal to increase both the supply and demand of Sinama Books we are hoping to start a sponsorship program this 2016 allowing us to provide schools with books for their classrooms with a majority of Sama students. We would like to prioritize elementary school and preschool classrooms, with a particular interest in schools in Zamboanga, Sulu, Tawi-Tawi & Palawan. The program will also be open for schools throughout the entire Philippines and hopefully we can find a way to make it possible in Sabah.

1) School Registration (Schools with Sama Students)

The first part of the program is registration. Maybe you know of either an NGO running a community based school or of a teacher or principal from DepEd with a significant population of Sama students. Please help us to get in contact with them. You can make initial contact with us here in the comments section of Sinama.org or on our Facebook page. This is the information we need:

• Name of School
• Location
• A Key Contact Person (Preferably a school or NGO administrator)
• Contact Information

To be provided by the Contact Person:

• Number of Classrooms with Sama Students
• Number of Sama Students in the School
• Known Sinama Dialects of Students
• Picture of the School

2) Pairing Up Book Donors to Schools that Need Sinama Books

The second part of the program is searching for partners who would like to sponsor books for Sama classrooms.

I personally on behalf of Kauman Sama Online have already sponsored books for 5 schools. We would like to increase the number of books that the 5 schools have in their library to include all existing titles and add additional sponsors to pair off with the schools that register for our program. We will make available a list of schools requesting participation in our program along with which books they have already received, as well as which books are still needed for their school. Recommendations will be given to donors concerning which books are most useful.

3) Recognition of School Sponsors

• Names of donors who have sponsored the individual schools will be published on our website for donor recognition of those who would like to be recognized.
• Pictures of the books in use at the school will be provided when obtainable.

Other posts in this four part series on our Sinama Big Book Publication Project:

• The Road to Becoming a Sinama Book Publisher

• Highlights from the 2015 Pagtimuk Paghinang Būk ma Sinama Workshop

• Another Year of Resolution to Publish More Books in the Sinama Language.