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{
    "id": 1483178,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1483178/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 342,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Siaya County, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. (Dr) Christine Ombaka",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "remember one time a Vice-Chancellor of a university - and I do not want to mention his name - said that university students do not know how to read. They are not reading. They cannot even write job application letters. That was a Vice-Chancellor lamenting how our students cannot read. It means we have never promoted a reading culture or if we did, then we are not putting more effort in doing so. It is because people have access to information the way they want from the internet. We have lost so much. We need to re-institute those libraries and ensure that they are devolved at the county level. I am the Woman Representative for Siaya County. I am proud to say that I have constructed three libraries in schools. The demand is high, but the problem is getting books. That is because even the books are disappearing somehow. They are very expensive and they are not available. Libraries are there, but if we do not watch out, they may end up being white elephants. The people have their own libraries on their phones. They can get access to information the way they want. They may not put a lot of investment into establishing national libraries, county libraries, family libraries or personal ones. I have a personal library, very powerful, with several books, but I still do not have the time to read some of them. Time to read is a big challenge today because of the many demands of our lives. We are so busy that we do not read and we do not encourage our children to read. Books are also very expensive. Libraries are very important and we need to promote them for the fact that we can protect the knowledge of the past. I know that in the past, we had a rich culture. That culture has never been preserved. In my community, we have great singers. There are people who passed away but left their music alive like Kabasele and Daniel Misiani. Those are musicians that are still thought about even today, but we have no history about them. The music is there, but there is no documentation that has been put together that generation upon generation will have access to. It is important that, as we think about improving our libraries, we need to go beyond just constructing buildings and saying this is a library. What is inside that library is what matters. Even if it is an old structure, let it be improved. We need to put all manner of information that people require today. There are so many scholars looking for books which are no longer there. Books are not being published, or if they are, we cannot get the ones we need sometimes. You have to make reference to them or borrow them from other countries. I remember when I was a student in the UK, and I was doing my thesis, I needed to make reference to a certain book that my supervisor insisted I must read. It was not available in that university. It had to be borrowed from another country nearby, and it took two weeks to arrive. Books are disappearing as well. So, we need publishers and people who can write. Hon. Millie Odhiambo has done a great thing. She has published a book. It is the way to go. I have published poetry. I am a poet. It is only that you do not know. I am a great poet and I have a whole poetry book. It is only that I have never shared it with so many people. It is published worldwide. We need to encourage a reading and writing culture. We are losing writings. People are creative out there. In this country, every year, schools participate in music and drama festivals. That is celebrated in this country year after year. Students travel to Nairobi to contest and sing, and then end up with their music and songs not recorded or preserved. For years, we have had this. We need to begin assembling the resources that we have to become part of our culture and be preserved in the libraries we are constructing today. So much should happen and we need to improve the way we store information. In the Kenyan National Library, I recall there was a huge section of children’s library; a section for ECD children. There were fantastic books, very nice music for children, cartoon books, little stories and folk tales for children. They are no longer there. This is what we need to preserve. We need to get them and have our children read and get used to them so that they can know that there is power in reading. So, I support this Bill because it promotes education, The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}