Improving the quality of primary education, specifically literacy, in South Africa
SAPESI's aim is to improve literacy and numeracy in primary schools, thus narrowing the education gap in South Africa.
Your support makes a difference in the lives of illiterate children. Join us in making a positive impact today.
Tagline
SAPESI is a NPO that imports second-hand mobile libraries from Japan. These buses are donated to the provincial Departments of Education and are utilized mainly in rural areas.
Mobile Library Project for South African Schools
We’re just starting our journey
Mobile Libraries and Counting
Through its mobile library project SAPESI assists children, teachers, and schools in the underprivileged communities by providing free and easy access to books.
Servicing 2500 Schools
SAPESI aims, by 2025, to have donated 100 buses that will service 2 500 schools. This will mean that there is at least one Mobile Library in operation in each of the 96 education districts across South Africa.
SAPESI’s Vision
Our vision is that schools will have well resourced and functioning school library and information services, which contributes towards ensuring that all learners and teachers are information literate and independent lifelong learners and readers.
Literacy and Reading Habits
The mobile library service, organised by professional library staff members, can assist teachers in guiding learners to become information literate and develop reading habits.
The problem of hungry children
Our story
SAPESI (South African Primary Education Support Initiative) is a section 21 company established in 2006 by business executives from both South Africa and Japan, to help improve the quality of primary education, specifically literacy, in South Africa. In 2008 a sister NGO, SAPESI Japan, was formed in Tokyo to raise funds in Japan for the sourcing and exportation of second-hand Mobile Library buses to South Africa.
In Japan municipalities are in charge of compulsory education. These offices utilise mobile libraries to take library services to the small schools that do not have their own schools libraries. Normally a mobile library is a two- to three-ton bus with a special library cabin equipped with bookshelves, carrying 2000 to 3000 books.
We aim to donate 100 buses that will service 2 500 schools
