The African Library Project

Two weeks ago, I met two philanthropists from California who came to Swaziland to deliver books and to visit their libraries around the country. The women were with the nonprofit, The African Library Project (ALP) http://www.africanlibraryproject.org/, whose mission is to increase literacy in Africa by creating and improving small libraries. The ALP partners with dedicated volunteers across the continent whose mission is education. Their partners include U.S. Peace Corps volunteers, National Library Service staff, education districts and African Non-Governmental Organizations. In order to supply the books for the start-up libraries, ALP seeks partnerships with U.S. schools to host book drives and then uses fundraising dollars to ship the books accordingly. In order to improve sustainability, on the African side, the school must provide the space, bookshelves, and a librarian. The way in which I got connected is a ‘small world’ story. One of the other PAC doctor’s (Dan) wife, Meredith, has a sister in Palo Alto, California who has 4 children whose school sponsored a book drive for the African Library Project. And, low and behold, they were partnered with a high school outside of Mbabane. Since Meredith had promised to visit the school and to take pictures of the book delivery for her sister’s children’s school (are you following this?), we met up with Chris Bradshaw (the founder of ALP) when she was in town. I was really just along for the ride and to volunteer myself as an in-country resource since Meredith and her family are moving back to the States at Christmas and I am working with the Ministry of Education. All-in-all it was a fun afternoon and it’s always nice to meet new people and to learn about another nonprofit operating in Swaziland.

The school is just on the other side of Manzini on the way to Siphofaneni, which is a more rural area. Here’s the view from the school.

The school buildings are fairly similar to ‘mobile’ classrooms or ‘bungalows’ as we like to call them in Los Angeles.

The third term ends this week and students will be off for summer vacation, so it was ‘final exam’ time when we visited. Here are some of the students hanging out after class.

These girls were begging me to take their photo!