Profile: Agnes Manda

Agness Manda completed her secondary education in 2006. She obtained a certificate in library and information Science at Evelyn Hone College in 2009. She started work in 2013 under the Ministry of Local Government and Housing with the Kalulushi Municipal Council on the Copper belt where she is working as a Library Assistant. She finds working in a library interesting meeting different people every day. She enjoys her job especially Reference Work.

In September 2012, the Nkhanga Library was planning to open but could not find anyone to volunteer to help catalog the more than 3,900 books. She took up the challenge. We asked her to use the most basic and simplest form of cataloging the books. She was able to travel from Lusaka to the Nkhanga twice so that the cataloging could be done with the help of about 12 assistants. The library was opened on December 8, 2012.

Recently she was asked to conduct a two day workshop to train a groups of library assistant volunteers form the community. She was also asked to write a report of the assessment of the crucial Nkhanga Library needs going forward. She traveled all the way from Kalulushi and performed the tasks for the library from April 11 to 14, 2016. Her report is being digested.

She says about her recent work: “My experience at Zambia knowledge bank was great, the entire committee members are very good including the local people they are peaceful and welcoming. During my stay at Zambia knowledge bank I was privileged to teach the community men and women volunteers how a library operates, the goals and objectives, library cooperating, library promotion, reference work, issuing of books, how libraries are organized, functions and types of libraries as well as understanding who composes that library and their needs”. Agness is a single mother of three children.

Agness does not currently have access to email. If you can kindly send her a text message to thank her for her sacrifices for the Nkhanga library. Cell phone number: 011-097-906-6551