Give Books for a Greener Home from Better World Books on Vimeo.

This Earth Day Week, if you’re thinking about greening your home, check out this story on Designing Spaces’ environmental show Think Green featuring Better World Books.

Think Green’s mission is to “re-educate, re-think and re-consider the environment as part of our economy, health and community, and effectively live an eco-friendly lifestyle and to respect our planet earth.”

“Think Green” featured BWB as an environmentally friendly company with a social impact. Correspondent Debi Marie interviewed our President and CEO, David Murphy, about how donating your used books and buying re-used books from our site is also helping promote global literacy. At BWB, we never throw a book away! We either sell the books to raise funds for our literacy partners around the world, donate the actual books to under-served communities through Worldfund, Books for Africa and Feed the Children, or have the books recycled.

Here are a few highlights of the ways that the BWB community is helping save the planet:

• Re-used or recycled over 60 million pounds of books
• 19,000 tons of carbon balancing on BetterWorldBooks.com shipping
• In the UK we partner with Carbonfootprint and Tree Appeal who plant a tree for every ton of carbon emissions produced, balancing our carbon footprint

Not only do we <3 books, we also <3 the Earth and all the people on it!

Many of us have heard the plight of the 27,000 “lost boys” of Sudan, their perilous 1,000 mile walk left more than half dead, and the rest came home to a country devastated by war, bare of essentials like clean water and schools. Matt Hoffman, an alumni Phi Theta Kappa member from Illinois Central College, was touched by these horrific stories and moved to immediate action. Matt reflects, “A good friend of mine, Sean Fahey from Endless Eye, informed me that his 501(c)3 had committed to raising funds to shoot a documentary film to raise awareness about the situation in Southern Sudan.” Sean’s organization has been working with Justin Machien Luoi, a Lost Boy, to build a library, a school, and provide clean water for Panyijiar County, Southern Sudan. Matt wanted to know how Upsilon Mu, Illinois Central College’s Phi Theta Kappa chapter, could get involved. They talked for a few hours that night and decided to design a “walk event” in Peoria, Illinois. That is how WalkSUDAN was born.

WalkSUDAN is a project intended to raise awareness and funds to build a library in Panyijiar County, Southern Sudan, a region that has been devastated by 20 years of civil war and ethnic conflict. As part of the “walk event” WalkSUDAN decided to collect books and that is where Better World Books got involved. Matt’s chapter was already running a Book Drive for Better Lives book drive. Matt approached me and asked if there was anyway we could help them with shipping the books to Sudan. Through the help of Pat Plonski, Aaron King and Dustin Holland we made an arrangement to cover the cost of shipping as long as they continued to send books.

Between the walk event and their book drive the Phi Theta Kappa collected over 8,000 books. Shortly after our first pick up in Peoria, Endless Eye secured another major score for WalkSUDAN: another 7,000 books from the Newberry Library in Chicago. Volunteers from WalkSUDAN, EndlessEye, our own Tony Tagliaferri, Phil Sorberg, and even my parents spent the morning packing the books from the library and putting them into Roy.

We are eager to get a container of books to Sudan, but before we can do that the library must be built. This Sunday December 14th there is a huge fundraiser for the library so if you can give anything at all even a $1, it would be much appreciated. Please visit Library Project for more information and to donate. Thanks to everyone that has helped with this project thus far, and for all those that help in the future.

Invisible Children has linked up their amazing “Schools for Schools” program with Better World Books, and the results are sure to be spectacular.  Haven’t heard about IC?  Well, they’re an amazing group of folks in SoCal who have created a documentary and mobilized a nation’s worth of students to help partner schools in Uganda.  Why Uganda?

” The war in northern Uganda has been called the most neglected humanitarian emergency in the world today. For the past 23 years, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and the Government of Uganda (GoU) have been waging a war that has left nearly two million innocent civilians caught in the middle. The GoU’s attempt to protect its citizens from this rebel militia has largely failed, leaving an entire generation of youth that has never known peace.

Since Invisible Children: Rough Cut was filmed in 2003, night commuting has ended for the children of northern Uganda. For the past few years, the region has been closer to peace than ever before. From June 2006 to March 2008 in Juba, Sudan, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and the Government of Uganda (GoU) engaged in a series of peace talks in order to end the conflict. These peace talks, supported by special envoys from the United States and other nations, allowed for the longest period of peace in northern Uganda’s 23-year war. “

Unbelievable right? It gets better. Through the schools for schools program they managed to raise over $3 million last year (wow!). Now, not only can students in the program raise money for schools, they can run book drives as well. In addition to the millions of dollars raised, schools are going on a full assault getting stacks of books for those in need. One school in Vermont will have shipped 30,000 books by the end January. That’s just one school amongst the hundreds across the US that are involved in the project.

(N.B. click on the images to go to the product page at betterworld.com):

10. A Long Way Gone (Sierra Leone)

9. Unbowed (Kenya)

8. Ake: The Years of Childhood (Nigeria)

7. What is the What (Sudan)

6. Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight (Zimbabwe)

5. King Leopold’s Ghost (Congo)

4. We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families (Rwanda)

3. Cry Beloved Country (South Africa)

2. Things Fall Apart (Nigeria)

1. Long Walk to Freedom (South Africa)

The empirical process – there was a rigorous selection process that I went through to arrive at this top ten which included moving to South Africa for a year and a half and reading a lot. What would you add?

Honorable mention:
Unheard, Heart of Darkness, The Power of One, I Write What I Like, Country of My Skull, Spud

[Bonus: If you're more interested in traditional storytelling in Africa, rather than these great stories about Africa, read My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (the book from which David Byrne and Brian Eno got the name of their first record).  It's amazing.]

The international organization created the revolutionary fundraising program in 2006 in response to the need for quality schools in northern Uganda – schools that have been destroyed by displacement, rebel occupation and lack of funding due to the 22-year war. Schools for Schools uses an innovative online social community to help students see where their money is going and connect to different projects, fundraising ideas, and supporters. Within its first year, students rallied together and raised over $3 million.

The World’s Biggest Book Drive will build upon Schools for Schools’ innovative fundraising strategy and will help complete the ambitious projects at Invisible Children’s eleven partner schools in northern Uganda.  Through a Partnership with Better World Books, a global bookstore that harnesses the power of capitalism to bring literacy and opportunity to people around the world, over 1,000 student groups will be invited to join the movement by leading community-wide book drives.

A winner of the 2008 Fast Company Social Capitalist Award, Better World Books is a fast-growing social enterprise that collects donated books and sells them online to fund literacy initiatives worldwide.  Through partnerships with more than 1,600 college campuses and 900 libraries nationwide, Better World Books has generated over $4.7 million for its non-profit, library and college partners, donated 1 million books to literacy programs globally, and diverted nearly 13.5 million books from landfills.

The World’s Biggest Book Drive will utilize the passion, creativity and hard work of student groups inspired by the GO documentary, and the technical and logistical expertise of Better World Books, to collect, sell and donate used books in support of schools in northern Uganda.

“What’s incredible about this program is that it relies on the most unlikely donors – high school and college students – to raise the money, allowing them to believe that they have what it takes,” said Laren Poole, Invisible Children co-founder and GO Director. “At the end of the fundraising and book drive competition, the top students have the chance to visit their school in Uganda to meet students their own age. It’s a story come full circle.”

Xavier Helgesen, a co-founder of Better World Books, believes the partnership with Invisible Children is unique in that “it allows ordinary citizens across the U.S. and Canada to support lasting peace in Uganda by donating a national resource in vast supply in both countries – used books.  Books cluttering up their closets, stuffed under their beds, and collecting dust on their shelves will be transformed into dollars to support literacy and international development.”

22 all-expenses-paid trips to northern Uganda will be awarded to student groups that raise the most money, collect the most books, and offer the most creative ideas for propelling the Schools four Schools movement.

The World’s Biggest Book Drive starts on September 8, 2008, and will end on January 31st, 2009.

About Invisible Children, Inc. Established in 2005, Invisible Children is a social, political, and global movement using the transformative power of a story to change lives. By inspiring youth culture to value creativity, idealism, and sacrifice, the movement fuels the most effective, adaptable, and innovative programs in the world. Invisible Children, Inc. was formed after the release of the film “Invisible Children: Rough Cut”, which documents a war in northern Uganda in which children are abducted by a rebel army and forced to fight as child soldiers. Currently, Invisible Children is putting 740 kids through school and employs more than 250 men and women living in this war-torn region, with plans to see that number grow. These programs on the ground were developed by the people of northern Uganda and seek to improve the quality of life for individuals through quality education, enhanced learning environments and innovative economic opportunities. www.invisiblechildren.com.

Taken from PJStar.com, apparently we’re doing something good again. You know that we’re really doing the right thing when the so-called evangelist can’t even keep up with all of them!

From PJStar.com -

Many college students have a hard time committing to weekend plans, let alone a pledge to rebuild a community in Sudan.

But recent Illinois Central College graduate Matt Hoffman vowed to make a difference – one book at a time – in the lives of the “Lost Boys.”

Over the past two decades, more than 27,000 boys have escaped villages in southern Sudan during a civil war that has claimed millions of lives. While their parents and sisters were being slaughtered, the young boys banded together for the 1,000-mile walk to refuge.

Though the violence mostly has subsided, the survivors have had little incentive to return to their war-torn villages. But Hoffman and other members of ICC’s honor society, Phi Theta Kappa, want to give the Lost Boys a reason to go home.

The fraternity recently partnered with Chicago media company Endless Eye Productions and national bookseller Better World Books to conceive a plan to build and stock a library in Sudan’s Punyijiar County. Over the past few months, the effort, called “Walk Sudan,” has collected more than 8,000 books, which volunteers loaded onto a truck Thursday to be shipped to Africa.

“We wanted to start with a library because education is a way to empower them,” said Hoffman, adding that most of the Lost Boys have seen no more than three books in their lives. “We want to give them something to come back to.”

Hoffman, who graduated from ICC in May, sat down with friend Sean Fahey from Endless Eye earlier this year to devise a plan about how to help Fahey’s friend, Justin Machien Luoi, a Lost Boy who was educated in the United States as a refugee.

After just an evening of brainstorming, the two set out to raise awareness and money to rebuild part of Luoi’s country. Nearly 50 members of Phi Theta Kappa began speaking at area schools and churches during the spring semester, asking for monetary donations as well as books. They also sponsored a 3-mile walk from Bradley University to the Peoria riverfront in May to raise awareness about their campaign and to simulate the trek the Lost Boys made to refuge.

While Hoffman has remained involved in the effort, his graduation from ICC and move to Loyola University in Chicago required him to pass on the reins to new Phi Theta Kappa president Thomas Aguilar, who is just as devoted to the cause.

Aguilar was covered in sweat Thursday, as he and other volunteers loaded the hundreds of boxes of books onto a truck. Better World Books also is donating texts and shipping the first batch to Sudan shortly, as construction of the library is scheduled to begin within the next few months. Endless Eye will follow along to capture the effort in a documentary called “A Library for Panyijiar.”

Walk Sudan has promised the library is just the beginning of the effort to rebuild the African community over the next 20 years. A school will follow, Aguilar said, then a water treatment plant. The project has no limit.

“This is our way of showing that Peoria can make a difference for people on the other side of the world,” he said.

Phi Theta Kappa Members Walk for Sudan

~

We all know that Phi Theta Kappa members are great, and we count on them to run some of our best Book Drives.  We were recently touched by a story of a group that is not only running a Better World Books book drive, but also reaching out to try to help coordinate something amazing.

Many of us have heard the plight of the 27,000 “lost boys” of Sudan, their perilous 1,000 mile walk  left more than half dead, and the rest came home to a country devastated by war, bare of essentials like clean water and schools. Matt Hoffman, a Phi Theta Kappa member at Illinois Central College, was touched by these horrific stories and moved to immediate action. Matt reflects, “A good friend of mine, Sean Fahey from Endless Eye informed me that his 501c3 had committed to raising funds to shoot a documentary film to raise awareness about the situation in Southern Sudan.”

Sean’s organization has been working with Justin Machien Luoi (www.pacodes.org), a Lost Boy, to build a library, a school, and provide clean water for Panyijiar County, Southern Sudan.  Matt wanted to know how Upsilon Mu, Illinois Central College’s Phi Theta Kappa chapter, could get involved.  They talked for a few hours that night and decided to design a “walk event” in Peoria, Illinois. That is how Walk Sudan was born.

Walk Sudan is a project intended to raise awareness and funds to build a library in Panyijiar County, Southern Sudan, a region that has been devastated by 20 years of civil war and ethnic conflict.

Matt is reaching out to Phi Theta Kappa members to help with this great cause, “I’ve been fortunate to witness the generosity, passion, and perseverance exhibited by Phi Theta Kappans and I know that, with a little effort, we can help rebuild Southern Sudan and become part of something bigger than ourselves!”

In addition to helping coordinate the walk, Matt and his chapter are going to run their campus Better World Books book drive as usual; only this time, they are going to take the funding they earn from this book drive and graciously give it to the Sudan Project!

Better World Books and Books for Africa have begun working on a partnership with Walk Sudan to help pay for the shipping of books to Sudan. Pat Plonski, Director Books for Africa, comments

“The need for books in Sudan is enormous because of the difficulty involved in shipping to that country.  The roads are very bad, and going to Southern Sudan represents a shipment almost to the very heart of Africa, which greatly increases the costs and logistical hurdles involved. For these reasons, we really appreciate the opportunity to work with partners like these who are willing to go the extra mile and get these books where they are so desperately needed.”

Better World Books will be using money from the newly created BWB fund in addition to money generated by Walk Sudan to help cover the cost of shipping. If you are interested in helping Walk Sudan reach their goal of building and stocking a library in Southern Sudan please contact Matt Hoffman (mhoffman23@mchsi.com).

Links to more information:
http://revver.com/video/698354/walk-sudan/ – our video (produced by Endless Eye)
http://pacodes.org/
www.endlesseye.org
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1177134747 – our Facebook
http://www.bismarcktribune.com/articles/2007/12/10/news/state/144197.txt – some press re: Justin’s efforts

This flyer was sent to all 500+ delegates attending the “Sullivan Summit” in Arusha, Tanzania.  Note that Better World Books, through the Better World Books Fund within Books For Africa, is sponsoring the shipment and that the books will be distributed by the Poverty Eradication Network (PEN) in Tanzania. Natasha Harris, Niko Tomlinson, Mary Murphy, Jaime Knabet, Dustin Holland and myself visited the PEN folks in the summer of 2006 and have continued to stay in touch with them (Mungwe and Andrea).  They do fantastic work (based in Dodoma, the national capital of Tanzania) throughout the country.

To find out more about the Sullivan Summit VIII, go to www.thesullivanfoundation.org/summit/.

On one hand, I’m tempted to post this just because of its prose, which is beautifully done.  On the other hand I’m tempted to post this because it’s a Nobel lecture for literature, which is certainly a worthy post.  But what made me give in to temptation was her involvement with getting books to the African continent (something we know a little about, having shipped 920,000+ books to our partners…)

I am standing in a doorway looking through clouds of blowing dust to where I am told there is still uncut forest. Yesterday I drove through miles of stumps, and charred remains of fires where, in ’56, there was the most wonderful forest I have ever seen, all now destroyed. People have to eat. They have to get fuel for fires.

This is north-west Zimbabwe in the early eighties, and I am visiting a friend who was a teacher in a school in London. He is here “to help Africa,” as we put it. He is a gently idealistic soul and what he found in this school shocked him into a depression, from which it was hard to recover. This school is like every other built after Independence. It consists of four large brick rooms side by side, put straight into the dust, one two three four, with a half room at one end, which is the library. In these classrooms are blackboards, but my friend keeps the chalks in his pocket, as otherwise they would be stolen. There is no atlas or globe in the school, no textbooks, no exercise books, or biros. In the library there are no books of the kind the pupils would like to read, but only tomes from American universities, hard even to lift, rejects from white libraries, or novels with titles like Weekend in Paris and Felicity Finds Love.

There is a goat trying to find sustenance in some aged grass. The headmaster has embezzled the school funds and is suspended, arousing the question familiar to all of us but usually in more august contexts: How is it these people behave like this when they must know everyone is watching them?

Read on at the Nobel site

In further exploring her questions, Carol views a map of Africa on Books for Africa’s website and finds a detailed map of Africa . (See below!) Then she discovers Better World Books, the largest supporter of Books for Africa’s projects–distributing textbooks to schools all over Africa . Books for Africa will be 20 years old this year and has sent 18 million books to schools and libraries all over the Continent. With the great support of Better World Books, Books for Africa will continue its incredible mission in supplementing and sustaining literacy in the second largest continent on earth!

Over at Adventures in Liberia, Justus talks about an event that you might be interested in:

Today I witnessed a marvellous ceremony which took place at Aquilla School in Paynesville. Visions in Action is helping supply a million books to schools, libraries, and other areas to promot literacy. They are also training teachers how to use a library system so that the books are not just locked in a room as a valuable ‘trophy’ and not used by the kids! The children marched into the school joyously singing where there were speakers from USAID Liberia, Books for Africa, and Better World Books as well as members of the Liberian Ministry of Education. It was exciting to see all the smiling faces on the children. I met with the founder of Visions in Action who I am going to sit down with and talk about possibly volunteering with them as they continue to distribute the million books to the 15 counties around Liberia. I met Justin (on betterworld.com team) and Andy (CIO) from Better World Books which is an online book seller like amazon.com but they donate some of the proceeds to purchase books for children who need them. So if you are going to buy a book check them out at www.betterworld.com.

Thanks Justus!  Keep up the good fight!

Full post

What is the What? tells the true story of Valentino Achak Deng, who was part of the group known as the Lost Boys of Sudan. This group of more than 27,000 boys traveled across Southern Sudan, Ethiopia and Kenya in search of refuge during the Second Sudanese Civil War in the 1980s and 1990s. What is the What is the novelized version of Mr. Deng’s autobiography.”

“One Book, One Philadelphia,” a program in its sixth season, “carefully chooses one book each year to dissect and celebrate. The program aims to unify and educate Philadelphians through reading.”  What is the What was chosen “…in part because of its relevance to the current situation in Darfur, which mimics the recent war in Sudan. The city hopes that the book’s candid representation of violence will resonate with readers and help them to reflect on issues of violence worldwide and within our city. Mr. Eggers praised the “One Book” program, admiring the city’s desire to promote reading on such a large scale.”

(original story and quotes from The Bulletin, Philly’s free newspaper)

Click on the photos for more info on the books and to buy them at BetterWorld.com!

*November 12, 2007

Rain is soaking the red dirt roads and we are exhausted as we head to the fifth and final school of the day, Nomevu High School. We are running late because of a long presentation at Mafunda HS, but the students at Nomevu are waiting for us, even though many have quite a walk home ahead of them. Alone on a grassy hill, this school has just one building. There’s only room for the 8th and 9th graders, so they’ll have to drop out by 10th grade.

Teachers greet us at Nomevu High School.

Thankfully, ECAG-USA, an non-profit building classrooms in this area and that organized our Africa trip (see their website or read the previous post), has placed this school as #1 on the waiting list for more classrooms, so that the students can graduate.

The process for a school to get new classrooms is that the school’s home community puts up a $1000 payment per classroom, and then, through fundraising and donations, ECAG sponsors the additional $11,000. The classrooms have a standard design, so the materials are accountable to the last brick and can house around 50 students comfortably. They are built with electrical wiring, but adding power is an extra for the school to pay. What happens if ECAG doesn’t build? That’s it; no new classrooms. The kids don’t graduate, or in some cases, have no school at all. Many students in this area still learn under a tree, but on a rainy day like this, it’s a day off. Cool! say the American kids, but think of how often it can rain in a season here! And, no desks, no library.. hardly a good learning environment.

I have mentioned that all primary students are fed a meal each day at school. What we learned today is that the government doesn’t sponsor high school students, so that means these kids at Nomevu had been waiting for us, without eating all day. Our hearts are breaking for these humble, appreciative students. Sorry this post might be a downer, but after we’d fallen in love with so many kids all day it was really hitting us, how hard life can be here. On the way here, on the radio, the newscaster announced that HIV/AIDS is the #1 killer of children in South Africa. How were these kids today so full of life?  I had to wonder if they thought our visit meant that we would be able to solve their problems, or if it was, you know, just a lot of fun.  I certainly had a wonderful day, but still I felt a bit guilty.

The end of a long day, Nomevu HS.

Like at every school, the students had songs and dances ready for us, including  the native costumes for the girls. I don’t feel comfortable posting video of the girls to BWB because they are topless, but I did think they were so beautiful. My favorite choral performance of the day, however, was this one:

Let it shine in Zululand video. (youtube)

The teachers provided a snack for us of sandwiches and chicken in the other classroom. Knowing the kids hadn’t eaten, and since we’d had snacks all day, nobody made a move for the spread. Some of the ladies in our group whispered we had to take something to not be rude, so begrudgingly, we did. More guilt… Anyway, we unloaded the sandwiches and drinks we had in the vans. With that and all the leftovers from the snack, there was enough for a small meal for each student, and we felt better knowing they had eaten.

What a day! We are overwhelmed but ready to help these students graduate. If you’ve been following this blog, you remember that at the end of this day, after Nomevu HS, we went to visit the student Nomkhosi’s family.

Xavier and Erin, bottom left, and the ECAG and Books for Africa group, enjoy the show.

*November 12, 2007

If you’ve noticed it’s been Nov. 12th for a few posts, you are not crazy and I am not mistaken; as I mentioned earlier, we went to five schools and visited a student’s home all in the same day! There is so much to cover that I had to break it up into several posts.

After Thembalisizwe Primary, we headed to Emasundwini Primary school. We’re not cruising around a town to get there; we drive on small country roads, through hills dotted with clusters of straw-roofed huts (don’t forget the zebras by the roadside). At the school, are six buildings, green and white this time.  This is another Books for Africa school and we visited the new library.

Emasundswini Library.mov (3.38 MB)

Additionally, some of the group, including Xavier, taught the students a small lesson using a world map (“Can you tell me where South Africa is?”). The teachers surprised us with finger sandwiches, which we ate tentatively (would we get sick?).

[I have to note, looking back, that nobody did get sick from the food. I was expecting to, since my world travel experiences have taught me that when one travels, one spends a day not eating if you know what I mean.]

I think Xavier needed to work off his sandwich, so he challenged some kids to a footrace. Note how he thought the finish line was a bit earlier than the kids.
Xavier races kids 3.mov (2.18 MB)

Next up was Gqokinsimbi High School, a very special one to our leader, Henry Bromelkamp. He has personally sponsored a classroom here through ECAG-USA. He started this organization after visiting the area and learning about the original organization, Eshowe Community Action Group, whose purpose is to build classrooms in the rural area around the town of Eshowe. Henry founded the US arm so that American donors could give money more easily and be able to write off donations at tax-time.  This all begs the question, Why doesn’t the South Africa government build classrooms in Zululand? Exactly. The government, possibly via some lingering racist sentiment (this authors opinion), doesn’t build here, but if ECAG does, the government will provide teachers and daily meals for primary students.
About the school name: I think the letter q stands for a click sound. Awesome!

I like this video because it shows that high school kids are truly the same everywhere.
video of Xavier talking to a cute girl at Gqokinsimbi HS. (youtube)

Barb Ryan, Xavier and Henry teach some maps at Mafunda HS.

Later on was Mafunda High School, with slogans “We Live For Tomorrow” and “Conquer the World Through Education” displayed near the entrance. Here again, our group taught classroom lessons, this time using photos of Minnesota (where most of the group hails from), showing seasons and such. Not one student answered affirmatively to the question, “Has anyone seen snow before?” None of us thought a description alone can really convey what snow is like, but the students did enjoy seeing pictures of snowmen and discussing what makes our countries similar and different.
Here again, we were treated to food and drink and a very detailed PowerPoint of the school’s goals through 2010.  These included the idea that the “doors would never shut” because the school would create an adult ed. program in the evenings, and sponsor community meeting space.

Here are some guys with beautiful voices and sweet moves. The ululations you hear are typical of how girls sing while guys dance here.
video of boys performing at Mafunda HS. (youtube)

Okay, one more school today… in next blog entry.

Girls perform at Mafunda HS.

Teacher at Mafunda HS.

*November 12, 2007

Library in Thembalisizwe Primary School.

We started our day of school visits at a very fortunate school, Thembalisizwe (“Hope of the Nation”) Primary. We passed by zebras on the drive down rust dirt roads bordered by emerald green fields. I say fortunate because this school has benefited from the generosity of many organizations. It has a water reticulation system and latrines from a Wisconson Rotary Club, classrooms built by the Eshowe Community Action Group (ECAG) and a library from BWB.  The buildings are pink and yellow and surrounded by manicured walks and ornamental bushes planted by students.

We are hosted by Jethro, dressed in a pin-striped suit with yellow shirt and gold tie.  He is the principal and a born orator who has recently been to the USA and knows what wealth we have in our country.  After we saw the school he appealed to us, “Some of you may be touched, and donate.”  He lays out his vision for the school: more computers, internet, a dining hall with a proper kitchen, more classrooms. Currently, two volunteer women prepare food over fires in a shed-like structure; each primary student is fed one meal a day at school.

We wandered the campus for a few minutes, listening to the learners singing in their classrooms as they do each morning and then headed to a multi-use room for a presentation by the student body.

Xavier, Jethro and Melanie (ECAG South Africa director) watch students perform.

This was such a treat! Students of all ages sang, danced and recited poetry and speeches for us. We heard our national anthem and joined in for South Africa’s, heard gospel songs in Zulu language, and one seemingly written for our group. The lyrics included these lines:

America, America! America you’re so beautiful.
Some of us are the orphans, some of us are so needy (2x).
America, America! America you’re so beautiful.
We love you, hey! We need you, hey! Can you help us, we’re so needy!

We were a little uncomfortable to hear that one. It was strange to be somewhere for the purpose of helping, when the need is known, but to hear the kids sing about it. Xavier and I discussed how in the US it is bad form to appeal in that way. More cultural lessons: the 5th and 6th grade girls left the room in school uniforms and returned in costume, which was a miniskirt, a string of beads and a cardboard shield.  Our group had to overcome a bit of shock to see these young girls dancing and singing, quite well in fact, but wearing nothing above the waist. I thought it was cool to see this total other sort of body acceptance, as compared to the US.

Video of boys performing a traditional dance (youtube)

According to the program director, the school is “not like a pond, but like a running river,” never stagnant.  When she thanked the Books for Africa board members of our group, she said the learners “have acquired certain skills, such as investigation. Our learners can investigate to find information. Our learners are different than previous; they have learned new skills from their library.” (YAY!)

Video of the library (youtube)

Students wave goodbye at Thembalisizwe Primary School, Zululand, South Africa.

Since we only arrived a few days ago to South Africa, we are still in the switch-time zone, get–the-lay-of-the-land phase.  Yesterday our group split into three, and my group, including Xavier and fearless leader Henry, went on a drive down toward the Cape of Good Hope. The roads were washed out, so we only got as far as Hout Bay, which is where the British set up camp back in the day (Cape Town was first Dutch), and is also cool because they didn’t really enforce apartheid. I hear Hout Bay even issued its own passports, such was the local pride, which new property owners can still obtain. We made it to Chapman’s Peak, overlooking the bay, and watched Right whales spouting in the waters below.  One even waved to us with his big tail! I felt like I was really at the end of the Earth there, where these green hills dropped right into the sea, near the confluence of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans and at the end of a continent so far from my home.

Hout Bay and Chapman’s Peak, South Africa.

Our tour guide Loki, a friend of Xavier’s, is a biologist interested in human-elephant interaction. After observing the troubles between farmers and elephant herds, he started a company called Elephant Pepper that educates farmers in high-incident areas and assists them to grow chilies (which elephants don’t like) along with their subsistance crops and to use the same chilies to make sauces to sell. (The Baobab Gold is perfection; tangy, perfect amount of heat, actually contains baobab…)

I get the impression that there are many support roles here that are filled by non-South Africans, such as in education.  This is not a bad thing, of course. I think if all the best information and resources went where they were needed the world would be a better place, and South Africa is such a great candidate for these resources. It has the infrastructure to receive them, plenty of educated English-speaking folks and cultural connections to most parts of the world.

Today was a travel day. We flew to Durban on the southeast coast, a stopover on our way to the KwaZulu-Natal region, or Zululand.  Cape Town was a good introductory city for our group: beautiful, historic, but still a bit removed from the real poverty of Zululand. Plus, we got to go hiking up Table Mountain this morning and get some ocean views, a real treat!

Xavier remembers his life path to this moment on the Table Mountain hike.

The Durban airport countdown until the next time I will be in South Africa… World Cup 2010!

As Xavier noted earlier, we didn’t have the technology to live-post to the blog during the Africa trip, so here it is, time-delay included for your reading pleasure.

Cape Town, South Africa

*November 7, 2007

Happy birthday to me! I have the greatest birthday gift today: my flight to Cape Town, South Africa! It’s going to be 11 hours from London to Johannesburg and another 2 to Cape Town, but only one-hour time change.  I will be joining Xavier, co-founder of Better World Books and Books for Africa (BfA) board member, and other people involved with BfA and a classroom-building organization, ECAG-USA (more on that later).  Some of the group’s goals for the trip include finding out more about the book delivery and distribution process on the Africa side, and also more about the needs and opportunities for education in the neediest regions of the country. I don’t know anyone else on the trip, but they are Minnesotans, so they must be friendly, right? Another birthday ‘gift’ – it’s almost summertime in South Africa! I can’t wait for the warm African sunshine after the month I have just spent in blustery, cloud-covered central Europe.

We are in South Africa until the 20th, and then we are in Malawi, a small country to the north, until the 29th.  We will be seeing many schools that have received book shipments and classroom donations, and potential recipient schools. I have a feeling we will learn so much…

*November 8, 2007

Unfortunately I arrived this afternoon from my overnight travel, so I missed the morning boat trip around Robben Island just off Cape Town’s V&A Harbor, where Nelson Mandela was held as a political prisoner for 27 years under the country’s apartheid regime.

The drive to Cape Town from the airport encapsulates what I expect to see in this country. There is beautiful natural scenery, with ocean view and rolling green hills (South Africa is the world’s 3rd most bio-diverse country, with over 20,000 plant species), and rich and poor communities awkwardly side-by-side. Just a few minutes after leaving the airport, black squatter camps surround the highway; tin-roofed shacks with many-colored scrap walls lean on each other amidst dirt pathways and women carrying the day’s wash.  My driver said the new government, like many recently, promised jobs to lift these people out of poverty, but thus far to no visible result.  Just a couple of miles beyond, I could see the University Cape Town, founded 1829 and still with nearly 50% white enrollment in a country that is 80% black, perched grandly up on the side of Devil’s Peak. While there is no longer apartheid, the advantage is still to the white folks here, it seems.

Cape Town itself is nestled in the lowlands of the oceanfront mountains, much like Rio de Janeiro. High rises are grouped near the Atlantic Ocean’s edge and lead up to private homes painted in rainbow colors up the hillsides. It was in one of these neighborhoods, called Bo-Kaap, where we had a fantastic, family-style Malay dinner.

The restaurant name, Bo-Kaap Kombois, essentially means the neighborhood kitchen. According to the owner, the local people historically held all family meetings, group decision-making and quality time in the kitchen, and so he wanted his restaurant to reflect the welcoming, homey atmosphere and the local cuisine. He enthusiastically told us about each dish and the sauces (think ginger, curry, tamarind and chilies), how the white landowners brought in workers from Malaysia, India, China and from the surrounding area, and how the lingua franca Afrikaans and the cuisine came out of this immigrant melting pot that is Bo-Kaap. He also spoke very highly of the generosity of the local residents (he claims we can walk into someone’s home and use the bathroom, and we will not leave without a cup of tea and having been asked about our mother), the strong sense of community and the prevalence of the Islamic faith here.  Xavier and I had a laugh at the thought of the walk-in-to-your-neighbor’s bathroom thing… I think we may try that back in San Francisco!

The view from the restaurant’s wall-sized windows was stunning; we were up on the edge of a bowl-shaped valley that poured down to the waterfront, and could see the red, pink and yellow houses of Bo-Kaap and a very curious sight—the little putting green in the empty lot below. Four boys, each with a 5-iron were hitting a golf ball up this strip of (how did that get there?) ratty astro-turf surrounded by unkempt lawn, one even wearing an Argyle sweater. I guess this was golfing Africa-style.

What a great first day! I am excited for the villages and the schools, but some transition time in lovely Cape Town will start us off right.  I’m still not over the “am I really here?’ feeling. This city is just so, well, European and modern that it is hard to fit it with my idea of Africa. But maybe that is the point: each place I will see here will stand alone and will have much to it that I don’t expect. How wonderful!

Xavier digs in to the Malay cuisine with Erin on his left; the owner smiles over the satisfied customers.

For $13,000 assembly, packing and shipping costs, Books for Africa will be shipping 35,000 well selected school books (approximate retail value: $150,000) and ten computers to four secondary schools in Northern Uganda. We are leading the campaign to raise these funds which will bring needed books to classrooms and libraries at Sacred Heart Secondary School in Gulu District; Alliance College Secondary School in Kitgum District; Lira Palwo Secondary School in Pader District and a secondary school in Amuru District in Northern Uganda . For more information about Books for Africa. (original text at Pan-African Empowerment)

I know Henry through my work on the Board of Books For Africa. It’s a collection of truly dedicated and passionate professionals who come together on their nights and weekends to help end the book famine in Africa. Henry’s a traveler after my own heart, preferring backpackers’ hostels to any hotel that brags about its star rating. He invited a number of his friends and business associates along on the trip, and over the weeks, they quickly became new friends. Although I normally abhor group travel, it made a lot of sense for this trip. The logistics of all the school visits and book recipient visits would have been daunting if we had not banded together. Another unexpected benefit was that I got to drive a rental 6-speed Mercedes mini-van on the left side of the road all over South Africa. Fun! I hate cars for the damage they do to the environment and culture… but I love to drive, especially in unfavorable circumstances. Consider it a guilty pleasure.

I blocked off what was easily my longest stretch away from the office since we founded Better World Books five years ago. The whole month of November I would be largely offline, with the exception of a few phone calls and email checks. A trip like this would have been inconceivable a few years ago, but thanks to the incredible team we’ve built at Better World, I didn’t sweat it in the least. I knew the ops would keep humming under Kreece’s leadership, BetterWorld.com would keep getting better thanks to Dale, Geoff, and Justin, and on and on. I think everybody was glad to not have to humor any of my crazy ideas for a whole month.

Speaking of crazy ideas, I had high hopes of being able to live-blog this trip from a OLPC, the $199 laptop designed specifically for the developing world. Sadly, the OLPC people didn’t have pre-release laptops available, and at any rate, Africa’s low Internet connectivity wouldn’t have permitted much blogging other than a few quick posts. So, loyal readers, you get the next best thing. Think of this as a time-delayed live-blog. We’ll be blogging with videos and photos and get as close as we can to bringing you along on the trip.

Also speaking of crazy ideas – we’ll be launching a customer loyalty system for Better World in 2008. Rather than give away blenders, coffee mugs, and similar rubbish, we thought that a few loyal customers should come to Africa with us to visit the literacy projects in person. After all, it’s customers that make this whole thing possible. Why should Better World employees have all the fun? This idea deserved a beta test. My friend and longtime Better World customer Erin Fleming agreed to join me and help document the trip. She’s typical of our customers – well read, globally minded, socially conscious, (and cheap!). Her perspective will really bring the trip to life for you.

Keep tuning in over the next month as Erin and I travel Zambia, South Africa and Malawi.

To whet your appetite, I’ve attached a few Youtube videos. These are from Erin and I hitchhiking in Malawi. Don’t worry – our traveling companions took a lot of convincing to leave us by the side of the road in Malawi.

Anne Gongwer is one such woman.  As a teacher-turned-missionary, she started the Ankaase Literacy Program in Ankasse, Ghana. Under her leadership, the program has taught over 80 adults and children to read in their native tongue.  She has continued to expand the young program, recently completing the Reading Town Community Library which will provide for the education of future generations of Ghanaian children.

Anne is originally from Mishawaka and had heard about us through an acquaintance.  I met with her and asked what Better World Books could do to help.  At the time, she was near finishing her library and really needed books.  We were more than happy to oblige.

Unfortunately I couldn’t meet with them when she and her husband came in to select them. I had a meeting with another potential partner (more on that in the coming months) so I asked my colleague, Jon Metzger, to assist them.  Jon spent his early years in Sierra Leone, where his dad was a surgeon.  It turns out that Anne’s husband, Cameron, remembered meeting Jon and his dad over 18 years ago in Sierra Leone.  I guess the Sherman Brothers were right.

The Gongwers were able to take 4 boxes of books with them on their way back to Ghana.  We hope to be able to get them more books in the future!

Here’s a statement from the National Director of Action Child Mobilization, Pastor Francis Opoku:

As for the quality of the books … I must tell you I am VERY HAPPY. The books are very good. The workbooks in particular would be very helpful to our village schools where they have no books at all. They will have something to work with. My wife is a professional teacher and has confessed the books will make teaching easier for the schools that would receive them. She admits they are more fun to teach with than the Ghanaian books. I am very happy with the content of the container.

Here are some pictures from the arrival!

A summer teaching English in South Africa my sophomore year ignited my love for the continent. The following year, 2007, I took on the effort to set up a library for the secondary school my cousin is building in Rwanda, and received a $10,000 Projects for Peace Grant to get it started. With the guidance of Washington and Lee University professors and librarians, I spent three months soliciting donations, purchasing books and software, making shipments, and devising a unique library cataloging system.

When I stepped of the plane in Kigali, Rwanda, I found that the books I had shipped three months earlier had not yet arrived. Though temporarily projectless, I was thrilled to immerse myself in Rwandan culture, get to know my Rwandan family, and take over teaching my cousin’s class of forty students, ages 9-46, while she traveled to America. The class was composed of pastors, electricians, mothers, farmers, and children, and though I stood at the front of the room, ours was a symbiotic relationship of learning and understanding. At night, I poured over the journals of the students—thankful for such an intimate window into their lives and inspired by each of their stories of devastating loss, forgiveness, and hope. I spent my free time devouring books on Rwanda’s peace and reconciliation process and found to my surprise that Rwandans were willing to speak about the genocide.

I traveled to Arusha, Tanzania to observe the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda where the masterminds of the genocide are put to trial. When I returned to Rwanda, I attended the traditional Gacaca courts where more grassroots reconciliation takes place. Sitting cross-legged in a field, I watched murderers confess to the families of their victims and walk free—an indispensable human experiment in restorative, not retributive justice.

The 2,500 pounds of books began to arrive shortly before I returned to America, and I spent sleepless nights cataloging them with the added inspiration that the students who had inspired me daily in the classroom would soon have the chance to experience the creative power of these stories. Through the library project, my hope is to cultivate peace in a small way by creating a safe and stimulating environment where both Hutu and Tutsi children can come together and use literary access as a healing resource.

Back on campus at Washington and Lee University, I step with purposeful energy. As chairwoman of W&L’s speakers committee, I am organizing a “Re-imagining Rwanda” forum this spring, and as campus President for Books for Africa, I am leading the effort to recycle and reuse books for use in Africa. The library project challenged me to be innovative, entrepreneurial, and flexible, but it was the personal relationships I formed with my students and my own observations of Rwanda’s growth and reconciliation that have truly inspired me to study and share the intimate lessons of Rwanda’s healing example.

Check out Logan’s amazing blog for more stories and information.

Add that all up and it’s a pretty simple equation:

+ + YOU    =

Changing people’s lives.

The Gala will include an array of traditional African cuisine and live music as well as an esteemed keynote speaker. We invite you to join us at this very exciting time to continue to promote the African tradition of peacemaking. You are welcome to join us in person, sponsor a guest, or send a check to support this wonderful cause.. The future of our work is dependent upon your financial support.

We accept checks made payable to the American Council on Africa , P.O. Box 386 , New York , NY 10150-0386 , credit card donations, or paypal donations through our website, www.americancouncilonafrica.org.

The health of the people of Somaliland is among the worst in Africa . This statement is supported by the fact that even before the civil war and the separation of the two Somali states, Somalia had one of the highest maternal and child mortality rates in the world. While recent valid data is not available, the mortality rates after the destruction that has taken place in country is frightening to consider.

-One out of 8 babies dies before the age of 12 months
-Every year nearly 4,000 Somali women die in childbirth
-One out of 5 children dies before the age of five
-Life expectancy is only 48 years

In the Somaliland region of Somalia, an extraordinary woman named Edna Adan Ismail runs her own obstetric hospital and trains midwives, underscoring how women’s lives can be saved even in the most difficult environments. The hospital site, once used as a mass killing field during the civil war for independence (1988-1990) under Siad Barre’s reign, is now a haven for bringing new life into the world.

Xavier Helgesen, co-founder of BWB, learned about this hospital in a New York Times article, and contacted the hospital after the announcement of the Better World Books Fund for Books For Africa, and a container of books was received in late July.

The Better World Books Fund is designed to pay for the shipping costs of containers of books, donated through Books For Africa. The Fund is important, because the shipping costs for this one container alone were over $5,000.

The donated books will be used for the hospital’s medical library for the Edna Adan Teaching Hospital. While the library could not currently contain a whole container of books, any extra books with will be distributed to Universities in Somalia and governmental nursing facilities.

What a summer it has been!  Last time you heard from me, our teams were just arriving in Zambia.  Now, after a lot of hard work and inspiring results, FORGE closes its Project Implementation phase and turns things over to our 100+ refugee staff and FORGE Project Managers.

This has been, without question, the most successful season in the history of FORGE.  I have never had so many people – NGOs, community members, refugees – come to me and tell me what a success FORGE is.  We are truly making a massive positive impact on the lives of thousand of refugees.

From a huge refugee rights initiative in Meheba to a repatriation information center in Kala to a community-wide women’s center in Meheba, this summer has been chalk full of success stories.  We’ve been inspired by our volunteers, our refugee staff, the communities in which we work, and everyone else in the FORGE family.

Sincerely yours,

Kjerstin Erickson
Founder and Executive Director
_______________________________________
To learn more about FORGE, visit www.forgenow.org
To sign up for the FORGE newsletter, click here

Check out the following letter from Pat Plonski, Executive Director of Books for Africa!

Hello everyone–It is my honor to inform you that Books For Africa has just signed a memorandum of understanding with Visions in Action to ship 25 40-foot seacontainers of textbooks to Liberia.  This agreement will provide for the shipping of between 875,000 – 1,000,000 textbooks (550 tons) valued at approximately $4 million over the course of the next 12 months.  Books For Africa history.  This agreement with Visions In Action stems from a meeting I held in Monrovia with Visions in Action in January of this year where this concept was established.  USAID is also playing a role in the financing of this project.  I will be traveling to Liberia in October or November of this year as part of a Books For Africa / Better World Books delegation to meet with Visions In Action, and Liberian government officials, and other key players to formally initiate this project. Thank you everyone for your great support of Books For Africa.  This is exciting news.  The need for books of all types is very great in Liberia and this is an opportunity to help rebuild this country and give hope to the people there.

–Pat

Patrick Plonski

Executive Director

Books For Africa

“I just received this story from our field staff about a man named Antoine, a Congolese refugee who has been running one of our computer training labs since 2005.  We’ve all worked closely with Antoine for the past 2 years, yet strangely nobody knew his story.  It’s energizing and refreshing to hear about the things that the people around you have overcome – and with what strength and poise, you’d never know the difference…”.

Antoine was born in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1981.  When he was a 17 year-old schoolboy, the war came to his village. Because Antoine’s father’s job was to report on human rights abuses, Antoine’s family became a natural target for the invading army.  They raided his home, tied his father to a tree, and began to beat him.  The family fled to the bush for safety, but as they ran they heard gunshots ring through the night.  They didn’t hear from their father again, and were convinced of his murder. After his father’s death, Antoine went to live with an uncle.  His uncle owned a computer and taught Antoine some basic computer skills, enough to land him a job upon completion of high school.

As he worked, Antoine’s goal was always to go to college to further his computer education. In 2003, five years after his father’s disappearance and presumed death, Antoine received a letter with his father’s handwriting and signature.  Shocked and thrilled to hear that his father had survived, Antoine and his family traveled to Zambia to reunite. Their father had made it to Kala Kala Refugee Camp in Zambia , where he had been trying to reach his family for the past 5 years.  Because his father could not return to Congo for fear of his life, the family decided to stay together in Kala camp.  When FORGE went to establish a computer lab in Kala in 2005, Antoine’s computer experience made his the natural choice for Computer Instructor. Antoine accepted the opportunity to help his fellow refugees learn the same skills that had helped him in life, and for the past 2 years has been teaching a full load of classes in English, French and Swahili.

During this time, Antoine has written a computing textbook over 400 pages long in simple French, including topics in computer basics, Word, Excel, Access, Power Point, and Internet Explorer.   With Congolese refugees now returning home, many of Antoine’s former students have contacted him, reporting that they had secured jobs because of their basic computer knowledge. Antoine is ready to go to college, but refuses to leave until his assistants at the Computer Center are ready to take over in full.  In his time with FORGE, Antoine has learned the many ways that his skills can benefit others.  When he returns to college, he will study humanitarian organization management.  To this, he says, “I now know much about computers, so I’m dreaming to one day help other refugees when my refugee status is gone.”

These pictures are from the 2 weeks that I spent in Kala Camp last month, building an addition on the FORGE house. Well, for me it was not so much building as it was watching people build, and then paying them. I did get my hands dirty a couple of times, but I definitely don’t deserve as much credit as the men and women who really put their sweat into it.

This house was made from almost all local raw materials. The only things we brought in from town were nails, door hinges, and cement. When I arrived at the Kala House, the 1500 bricks for the addition were already drying in the sun in our yard. They had been made with water, mud from our yard, and rectangular wooden molds.

The refugee construction crew started digging the foundation, painstakingly measuring every angle to make sure the construction would be flawless. As the foundation was started, other people started gathering the additional raw materials we would need for the house, cutting grass, bamboo, and cord from the fields for our thatched roof. Local carpenters started working on cross beams, as well as doors, door frames, windows, and window frames.

When the bricks started going up, the mortar was made from mud from our yard. The addition includes a bedroom that can hold 5 people and a beautiful open air kitchen that will make cooking, eating, and socializing more easy, efficient, and fun. The bedroom has a nice hard cement floor, and the walls are also plastered nicely, again with mud from our yard. After the walls went up, strong cross beams were secured to the top, with sticks of bamboo running across the roof, tied to the cross beams with strong cord. Then dried grass was tied in bundles to the bamboo. I’m not claiming to understand the physics of the whole thing, but this house will withstand the elements for years.

Who knew that one’s backyard could contain such a wealth of building materials!

Just like this addition was efficiently built to be long lasting using local resources, the 5 students who sleep in it will build their programs in Kala Refugee Camp using local ideas, local talent, and local staff. The team of 10, who I participated in training in Los Angeles , will arrive in Kala Camp in one week. They will only stay for 2 months, but the programs that they work on, like our house, will be long lasting. Not only will refugees gain skills in reading, health education, business, and computer literacy to use in Kala Camp, but they will be able to take those skills back to D.R.Congo when they return to help rebuild their lives.

“Education is key to an effective response to HIV/AIDS. Studies show that educated women are more likely to know how to prevent HIV infection, to delay sexual activity and to take measures to protect themselves.”

Moreover, educated girls can transform an entire community. Go to the following link http://www.unfpa.org/hiv/women/report/chapter5.html to find out how educated women can empower themselves and others.

Additionally, this graph shows the stark difference between the prevalence of HIV/AIDS infection among Ugandan girls who are educated and those who are not.

Source: De Walque and J Whitworth, MRC Uganda (2002)

]]> http://blog.betterworldbooks.com/2007/05/25/the-impact-of-educating-girls/feed/ 0 http://blog.betterworldbooks.com/2007/03/20/mit-book-drive-supports-ghana-library-project/ http://blog.betterworldbooks.com/2007/03/20/mit-book-drive-supports-ghana-library-project/#comments Tue, 20 Mar 2007 21:25:30 +0000 admin http://www.betterworldblog.com/PermaLink,guid,85a73582-cdf4-4a62-9482-714e29fbdae4.aspx Sadik Antwi-Boampong, a student at Massachusetts Institute of Technology & president of the student group EASE (Expediting Access to Standard Education) http://web.mit.edu/ease/www/participate.htmlhas spent the last few months organizing a library in in Nsuta, a small town in Ghana . While in Nsuta during January, he was able to meet up with Pat Plonski, the Executive Director of Books for Africa, and arrange a shipment of 7,000 books for the library!  In his words, “It was a refreshing experience for me to meet and share my experiences with [the students of Nsuta]. Additionally, I was especially humbled that I received tremendous support from various people who shared my passion for educational empowerment through reading. It is my fervent prayer that the presence of the library will produce academically excellent students in Nsuta community.”

Sadik & EASE will be leading a Better World Books / Books for Africa book drive this spring at MIT. Here are some great pictures from his trip to Nsuta

In that regard, few book shipments have warmed my heart more than this one. Late in 2006, a shipment of 15,000 books direct from the Better World Books warehouse arrived at the Ahfad University for Women, a private, non-sectarian University with 5,000 students. Sudan and its people have been victims of a corrupt and genocidal ruling regime. I’ve always believed that regime change is more likely to succeed by educating minds than toting guns. I wonder if the next generation of leaders in Sudan may include women educated at this University.

Below are some pictures from the book distribution. These are exceptionally high quality and recent textbooks, which students in the USA and Canada originally paid about $1 Million for. All it took was a lot of gumption on the part of everyone involved with Better World to get them to Sudan.

In November of 2006 Oren’s Daily Roast, a specialty coffee seller in NYC, teamed up with Better World Books to raise money to rebuild the Hirna Secondary School library. Known as The Hirna Library Project, this is part of a larger initiative to rebuild the entire Hirna Secondary School .

Oren’s Daily Roast is currently accepting book donations at eight of their NYC locations. All donations will be offered for sale online and the profits will go towards the reconstruction of the school library, proving the students of Hirna with much needed books a brighter future. To learn more about this project please visit http://www.orensdailyroast.com/cat/Book+Drive+-+Ethiopia.html.

The funds generated from last semester’s drives helped to finance the shipment of 400 computers to Mongu! This shipment enabled Project Educate to provide equipment to the Mongu Teacher Training College , the Lewanika General Hospital Nursing School and Project Educate’s newly founded Community Support and Resource Center . Prior to this shipment, the nursing school had a ratio of 1 computer for every 80 students. This figure has drastically improved to 1 computer for every 4 students!

This semester, Project Educate needs your help to finance their latest initiative to ship desperately needed medical and pharmaceutical supplies to Lewanika General Hospital in Zambia ‘s Western province. The hospital is a 600 bed facility that serves an estimated population of 200,000 people.

To learn more about Project Educate’s mission and how you can help, please visit www.project-educate.org

Thankfully that was not the last I heard from AMSA members. Soon inquiries started to come in from other AMSA members that were inspired by Sonia’s efforts. Book drives were lead by three other AMSA groups at schools in the Chicago-land area. In total they collected 2200 more books! This is enough to fund the shipment of over 9,000 books to Africa which can supply five entire schools.

Our efforts did not stop there. Now AMSA and Better World Books are teaming up to bring this program to all AMSA members. Besides the obvious benefit of helping to end the book famine in Africa , your chapter will financially benefit by receiving 50 cents per “qualified book.” Modeled after Goodwill Industries, each book you send us will be either sold online with 100% of the profits going to Books for Africa or will be sent directly to BFA. An additional $.10 per book will be set aside for AMSA scholarships.  The scholarship amounts will be determined at the end of the year, and will be based on number of books collected per school as well as per capita books collected/school size ratios.  Plus, Global Health Action Committee will receive an additional $.05 for every book collected!  And, as you know, Global Health Action Committee aims to uproot poverty; since economic disparities lay at the root of health problems the world over.”

We hope that each and every AMSA group decides to participate in this rewarding service project to help save precious books from landfills and help spread global literacy.

Damon has worked in the Meheba refugee settlement in Zambia; he’s been managing a project called PACE (Project for African Community Empowerment). You can read more about Damon’s work on his fascinating blog: http://www.pacenow.blogspot.com/

Hamjambo! It’s been over a month since the last update, and a lot has happened. So this may be a long update. But it’s exciting and will be worth your time to read. I promise.

Both the men’s and women’s projects have quickly transformed from vague ideas to real projects that are being implemented. After deciding on what problems they want to address, both groups have accelerated into the implementation phase, meeting with me five times a week and often meeting for hours at a time on their own, even as their work load has increased due to cultivation. Let me fill you in on the development of each project over the past month. Ladies first…

The women are aiming to help people improve their harvest, the primary source of food and income for almost everyone in the community. They decided the most effective way to help people improve their harvests in the short- and long-term is by providing them with fertilizer and hiring a professional agricultural extension worker to give free workshops for anyone interested in the community. Most farmers are simply too poor to purchase fertilizer which, if used properly, can triple their yields. The workshops will educate people on the most effective modern farming techniques and help them to understand the science behind farming, enabling them to manage their farms more effectively instead of blindly doing whatever others are doing in hopes that it will work.

The women immediately realized that if they wanted to help farmers improve their harvest this year they would have to work hard and fast. People would be planting soon, and one of the two types of fertilizer needs to be applied at the same time that the seeds are planted. The women needed to hurry, but could not proceed hastily. They were facing a serious challenge–determining what price they would need to charge people in return for the loans of fertilizer. Instead of charging people up-front, the women are loaning people fertilizer in return for corn in May, after people have harvested their crops. The market rate for a fifty kilogram bag of fertilizer is about $32. The government subsidizes fertilizer for registered cooperatives which only have to pay $12 for the same bag of fertilizer. Unfortunately, it takes six months to register as a cooperative, meaning that we had to purchase the fertilizer at the market rate. People in Meheba are not accustomed to having to pay the market rate. They expected to pay no more than one hundred kilograms of corn per bag of fertilizer. We eventually calculated that we could make a slim but adequate profit if we charged people one hundred forty kilograms of corn per bag of fertilizer. When we conducted a last-minute feasibility analysis to see if people would be willing to pay that much per bag of fertilizer, only a handful of people said yes. We had cut the expenses a much as possible and reduced the profit margin substantially. There was nothing else we could do. We had to either go for it or wait until next year. But quite a few people in the community were expecting to receive loans and had prepared their fields in anticipation of applying fertilizer. (Apparently, how one prepares his field depends on whether he is planning on using fertilizer or not.) Those people would be very disappointed if the fertilizer was not distributed.

So we went for it. The women commissioned my translator and me to go to Solwezi and buy three and a half tons of fertilizer. Two days later we rode back on top of a huge truck carrying seventy bags of fertilizer. The women had been taking applications for the fertilizer loans while we were gone. They had received eighteen. The day they scheduled to distribute the fertilizer an additional thirty people showed up asking to receive the loans too. So it turned out that people were just bluffing when they said they wouldn’t pay one hundred forty kilograms of maize per bag of fertilizer. Since distributing those seventy bags, rumors have circulated that we will be loaning out more and dozens of people have asked the women participants if they can still get some.

I asked a couple of the women why so few people seemed interested in the beginning and it was only after the fertilizer showed up that they started coming out of the woodwork to request loans. They told me that very few people had taken the project seriously until they saw the fertilizer being passed out with their own eyes. They said that many NGOs have come to the community with big ideas in the past, gotten people excited, and then not delivered. It has turned the people of Zone F into skeptics. Understandably. I was happy to have the opportunity to show them that there are still organizations like FORGE who honor their word and deliver on their promises.

At the same time as all this was happening, the women found a highly qualified extension worker who lives in the camp to give two workshops a week. He is a tall, quiet man with a huge smile who is always on time, which is very unusual and unfortunate since most of the attendees of the workshops show up over an hour late. I have attended two of the workshops so far and am glad to report that not only does he know what he is talking about, he is also an excellent and patient teacher. It’s not often that you find someone who is an expert in his field and an excellent teacher as well. Community members listen attentively and ask dozens of questions that they have probably had for years. After the extension worker answers them thoughtfully and clearly, everyone nods and smiles at each other. I smile too. Funny how knowledge can make you so happy.

The women’s next challenge is to build the storehouse where they will keep all the corn they will be receiving in May. In order to make a profit, they will need to keep it in storage until next September or January, when the prices for corn will be about three times higher than they are in May, when the supply is high and the demand low. In order to build the storehouse, they need $1,000. I have encouraged them to seek investors in their business to pay for the construction expenses. They think it will be difficult to find investors. Very few people in the community have ever invested in anything before. No one has witnessed how the business is run because it has just started. And in a poor community, people are very risk-averse with the little money they have. Still, the women believe they can attract $500 of investment capital from among people in the community. I told them that I would commit to matching every dollar (or kwacha) that they raise through my own fundraising efforts. In addition to that $500, I would also like to raise an additional $2,500 for their project.

According to the current plan, they will be forced to sell their corn in September so that they have cash to purchase more fertilizer in October to be distributed in November. The market for corn in September is good, but it peaks in January. If they were able to sell the corn in January instead of September they could more than double their profits of $350 to almost $1,000. In following years the profits would be even greater because they would be buying the fertilizer at the discounted price as a registered cooperative organization. Having an extra $2,500 would enable them to buy the fertilizer in October and still keep the corn until January. Increased profits will be good for three reasons. First, it will allow them to purchase more fertilizer each year, helping more and more farmers every year. Second, it will give the people who invested in the business a better pay-off for their investment, making them and others more willing to invest in the future. Third, PACE is by far the biggest investor in the business.

A large majority of the profits will belong to PACE. I have stipulated that those profits may only be used either for reinvestment in the business of for other PACE-authorized social projects or enterprises that they come up with. That means that if the women start a scholarship program for children in the community to go to high school with the profits from this business, bigger profits will allow more children to be sent to high school from Zone F each year. The additional $2,500 will pay off in a big way in the long-term.

Just thirty donations of $100 will multiply the benefits of this project several times over. Please consider giving $100 (or whatever you are able to give, more or less) for the women’s project. It may be the biggest bang you ever get out of $100 holiday gift. Please make checks out to “FORGE” and send them to:
Damon Luloff
312 NE Eaglewood Dr.
Ankeny, IA 50021

Now, onto the men’s project…

The men’s project is a bit simpler in many ways. They aim to provide transportation to Zone F, which has not had access to transportation in years. Currently if anyone wants to travel out of the camp, they have to walk about ninety minutes to the nearest bus stop (and as my translator says, “that’s ninety minutes if one is a strong walker”). If they buy anything in the city they have to carry it back that same distance once the bus drops them off, usually after dusk. The men originally wanted to buy a five ton truck to transport people and goods all over the camp, to the nearest big town Solwezi, to the border of Congo (one of the best markets in the region), and anywhere else people want to go. However, after seeing that the budget would be $12,000 and that they’d have to raise $9,500 of that on their own, they changed their strategy. They decided to buy a minibus instead, which they are hoping to buy for about $4,000. PACE invested $2,500 in the project, meaning that they had to come up with the rest of the $1,500. After seeing results with the women’s project, people in the community with the means to contribute that kind of capital were no longer skeptical about PACE and FORGE. In just two days the men were able to raise the remaining $1,500 they needed to start the business.

They brought this money to me so that I could physically see it to show that they weren’t joking… They weren’t joking. I was impressed. They said that people in the community wanted the project to start as soon as possible. People had gone long enough without transportation. They also told me that they wanted to get started before I left so that I could take pictures and video to show PACE donors and supporters (you) that the project had really started–so you could see it with your own eyes. As my translator often says about the men: “They are very serious.” According to their calculations, the minibus should bring in at least $300 a week in pure profit. They plan on saving all the profits so that in May they can put a down payment on the five ton vehicle they originally wanted to buy and start operating it once people harvest their crops and need to start transporting them. Usually, vehicle operators come into Zone F from outside Meheba and charge exorbitant rates. People have no option but to accept. Not this year! According to the men’s calculations, they will be able to charge 25% less than other operators and still make the $300 a week profit. Now that’s community empowerment!

I still wish I could stay an extra month or two to see the projects through their initial stages. But when I leave in one week, I will leave confident that they will succeed. I hope you are confident too.

This will be my last update from Zambia. I want to express my gratitude to all of you who have supported PACE over the past year, helping to bring what was once just an idea into fruition. It’s come a long way and has turned into everything I hoped it would be. It truly would not have been possible without you. I wish you could see the impact your support and contributions have made here. As much as I try to express and describe the change you’ve made possible here in this lengthy email, I’m sure I don’t do justice to the actual impact you have had. I hope that you can see what a difference you have made as an individual supporting a community you have never met. The people of Zone F thank you daily. I wish you could hear the things they say and hear the genuineness in the way they say them.

If PACE proves to be half as successful as it looks like it will be in Zone F, I will be compelled to implement it in other communities in Africa. With your support, I’m sure that it will be possible.

Aksanti sana! (Thank you SO much!)
Damon

The following article is a breath of fresh air. Event though this piece, like most others, only mentions literacy in passing, it offers some very uplifting statistics on the state literacy and education in Africa . Recognizing the good along with the bad, this piece provides a balanced perspective on African development.

It is undeniable that there are a number of very serious issues that Africa and its many states must address to free themselves from the cycle of extreme poverty. I’m not suggesting that these topics should be ignored by the media or that they do not deserve attention. However, it is important these issues are approached in a constructive way and that impactful development is given the recognition it deserves. Positive reinforcement and positive thinking are key components of progress…

Has Africa finally turned a corner?

By Scott Baldauf | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

JOHANNESBURG , SOUTH AFRICA – With a decade of sustained economic growth, increasing demand for African minerals and oil, and a falling number of conflicts, the trend lines for some countries in sub-Saharan Africa are finally starting to look pretty good.

A new World Bank report, issued last week, has gone as far as to say that 2005 may be the year when Africa “turned the corner” from poverty and debt to prosperity and wealth. In a continent that was once almost entirely dependent on foreign aid, there are now 16 countries that have achieved annual growth rates in excess of 4.5 percent for more than a decade.

“Africa today is a continent on the move, making tangible progress on delivering better health, education, growth, trade, and poverty-reduction outcomes,” said Gobind Nankani, the World Bank vice president for the Africa region.

The African Development Indicators for 2006 report, of course, doesn’t pretend that all of Africa’s problems have been solved – from the spread of HIV-AIDS to continued conflicts in Sudan and Somalia to the persistent lack of basic services, such as water, sanitation, and education. But for a continent that has gotten used to hearing glass-half-empty analysis of what has gone wrong, the report has decidedly emphasized what has gone right.

“While economic outcomes are increasingly diverse, Africa has made near uniform progress in social outcomes, notably education and health,” explained John Page, the World Bank’s Chief Economist for the Africa Region.

It is the very diversity of Africa – with fast-growing oil states like Equatorial Guinea and rapidly-declining states like Zimbabwe – that makes any sweeping statement imprecise at best. Yet here are a few encouraging trend lines that are starting to have repercussions of the positive sort.

• The number of conflicts in Africa has dropped to just five in 2005, from a peak of 16 in 2002.
• During the past two decades, fertility rates have dropped in every African country. The greatest drop in fertility is found in Namibia to 3.8 in 2004 from 5.9 in 1990, followed by Rwanda, to 5.5 (2004) from 7.4 (1990).
• Several African countries, including Senegal, Mozambique, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Uganda and Ghana are on course to cut the number of people living in poverty by half by 2010. Cutting poverty is one of the Millennium Development Goals agreed to by 189 nations in New York in 2000.
• Enrollment in primary schools has increased continentwide to 93 percent in 2004 from 72 percent in 1990, and literacy rates have consequently risen to 65 percent in 2002 from 50 percent in 1997.

Low incomes, bad roads and ports

Yet amid these positive trends, there are darker clouds as well.

• Almost half of Africa ‘s population still lives below the poverty line, which the World Bank defines as an income of less than $1 a day.
• African economies must grow at about an annual rate of 7 percent – on a par with India and China – in order to meet their target of cutting poverty in half by 2015. Governments must also either invest or encourage investment of at least 5 percent of their gross domestic product in infrastructure in order for their economies to continue growing.
• Inadequate roads, inefficient ports, and power outages have helped make Africa home to six of the 10 countries judged to be the most difficult environments in which to start a business, according to a recent World Bank study. The lack of foreign investment – Africa received just 1.6 percent of all foreign direct investment ($10.1 billion) in 2005 – means fewer jobs to relieve poverty.

Sarah Crowe, spokeswoman for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), says that even economic prosperity can bring its own set of new challenges.

“We’re now moving to a world of peri-urban slums and megacities bursting at the seams – such as Kinshasa and Lagos and Nairobi – with people moving to cities to find work,” says Ms. Crowe. Such big cities have been unable to keep pace with the population growth, and growing demand for clean drinking water and sanitation facilities. Big cities are also key points for the spread of HIV-AIDS, a disease with devastating economic potential, since it targets primarily those who are in their prime working years.

“Unquestionably, there is a momentum there, but the big challenge for NGOs (non-governmental organizations) will be these gray areas,” adds Crowe.

Some in the aid community say that the World Bank’s report may have been overzealous in painting a picture of African progress. “Turned a corner?” chortled one American financier with decades of experience in African aid projects. “This is a maze we’re in here. There’s going to be lots of corners.

Greg Mills, director of the Brenthurst Foundation, a think tank on strengthening African economic performance, argues that the most important trend seen in the World Bank report is showing that Africa can no longer be seen as a single entity.

“What the World Bank report is showing is the growing differentiation in the African continent, and the different problems between countries and regions,” he says. “This is contrary to the notion of African Unity.”

There are commodity-producing countries like Nigeria , Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Sudan , and South Africa , and agricultural powerhouses like Kenya and Tanzania . There are landlocked nations like the Central African Republic , with little access to global markets, and rapidly globalizing countries like South Africa , Mauritius , Tanzania , and Benin .

Finally, there are countries like Nigeria , Ethiopia , Sudan , and the DRC that are so large and diverse that they are difficult to govern as a single entity. While some of these larger countries often have valuable resources, they will still have trouble emerging as winners in the global marketplace unless they start to change their system of governance, Mr. Mills says.

“The critical elementary differences between [African] countries are their regimes and their natural resources,” says Mills. “Since they can’t change their size and resources, the one thing they can change is the style of their government, and those that are generally performing better are the latter group,” which like Rwanda , South Africa , Botswana , and Uganda , have instituted substantial governmental reforms.

Ross Herbert, head of a research project on governance at the South African Institute for International Affairs in Johannesburg , says that one of the best signs for Africa in the past decade is that fewer African leaders solve their problems today by printing more money.

But Africa ‘s current prosperity – largely the result of global demand for commodities such as natural gas, oil, timber, copper, iron, coal, and cobalt – is a temporary window of opportunity that analysts say should not be wasted.

“Africa has to go out into the world and learn markets,” says Herbert. “Chinese companies went to Ghana and studied kinte cloth, and now you can buy Chinese cloth that emulates kinte that is cheaper than the local cloth.”

“That is how competitive other countries are,” he says. “We have to choose … to climb the ladder faster than other countries. And no one, other than Zimbabwe , is standing still.”