Request to consider a donation to Books For Africa

This blog is a request that you consider a donation to Books for Africa, an organization to which we have made an application for a library in our community.

The High School in our community is across the dirt road from our homestead. There are 536 students in forms 1 to 5 with between 40 and 80 students per class. The students and teachers have been very welcoming to us. Mark is helping teach the Shakespeare class and we both helped coach the Jr. Achievement club. We plan to make the school one of our main volunteer projects, teaching Life Skills, which includes the fundamentals about HIV transmission, some general information on health and nutrition, and some exercises in trying to make good choices and stand up to pressure. The kids who go to this High School are mostly poor. Their parents, if they have them (many are single or double orphans) typically struggle to pay their school fees.

Last year the school did poorly on the English section of the national exams, receiving a 12% credit rate (C or above – necessary for college admission) and 24% pass rate. We want to help them improve those scores, because knowing English will greatly enhance their futures. With our help, the school has applied to Books for Africa/Books for Swaziland for a grant of 1000 books to replace the decades-old, tattered, dusty and generally unappealing books in the school library. While we don't know if our High School will be chosen, the program hopes to start or improve 30 libraries in Swaziland this year, and our personal view is that this High School is a top candidate to receive a grant.

We attach a picture of the current library and the newly formed Library Committee, submitted with our BFA application.

Many of you have asked how you can help us. The books for this program are donated, but need to be shipped from the US. Additionally, there is training for the designated “librarian” from each school. The Peace Corps has set up a way for family and friends to support volunteers. If you are interested, please check out the following links: 
https://donate.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=14-645-001 (Books for Swaziland) or go to https://donate.peacecorps.gov and put in the project number 14-645-001  

 

 There may be other opportunities in the coming months to help us help the people in Swaziland, some perhaps where all of the funds go only to our particular project, as distinct from BFA, where your donation helps 30 different libraries in the country.