The people of Uganda have been through so much I find it so unbelievable that they are as open and friendly as they are.  They have to be one of the warmest people I have met in my life.  They welcome strangers into their homes, feed them, and pray for them upon departure.  They were honest and open when talking to us.  The people we were meeting through the Legacy Scholarship Program offered by Invisible Children were the proud parents and it was clear that they just want the best for their children.

The folks of South Africa have been as warm.  The students or Learners as they are called here have sung and danced for us at each location.  The teachers and other students have given speeches to thank us for our work.  I must say I have met some very poised 7th graders that are able to speak to a crowd of people in a stirring way!  Most of the libraries have been set up and are in good shape but could always use more space and books.  They serve an incredible amount of food to share with us and it is an outright celebration that we have come to visit.  Next time I visit home the family is really going to have to do some things differently because a person could get use to this type of treatment!

South Africa is a beautiful country with rolling hills and deep valleys. We are in Zulu country where Homesteads are settled on the ridges of the mountains and are meticulously kept.  The sunsets have been amazing and today we even were able to witness a sugar cane burn. The children wave as you pass them in the car and they are lined up in the playground waiting for us when we arrive.

While there is a need for books in South Africa as there is in Uganda, South Africa is fortunate enough to have a fairly good infrastructure.  Roads are in fairly good shape and organizations like the Rotary are well established and working to improve education overall.  They have built over 3000 classrooms in the area we are in and continue to work to build more and supply books.  Books for Africa(BFA) and Room to Read have done amazing things here and the books lining the shelves in the classrooms and libraries prove that.

If for no other reason, this trip has been great for all of us because we are seeing the action “on the ground”.  We are meeting the headmasters that work long and hard to make sure they are providing a good educational experience while supplying nutrition and counseling, and in some cases parenting to the Learners in their schools.  We are meeting dedicated teachers that want to do whatever they can to help the student even if it means going for more education themselves.  It is extremely exciting to see the children so happy to be utilizing their libraries and reading the books we have sent.  It is also good to see how a community like the one we are staying here in South Africa and organizations like Room to Read, BFA and Invisible Children can change the direction for not one but many children.  Work they do should be commended and supported!

We leave here tomorrow and head to Capetown.  More to come.

Our last few days in Uganda were very memorable. We all had the opportunity to travel for one day with Invisible Children mentors as they made visits to families and students. Invisible Children sponsors a scholarship program for nearly 700 students in the Gulu, Uganda area. These students not only have their education paid for, but are partnered with a mentor who helps the student to focus on their studies. Many of the students attend boarding schools as well and the mentors communicate between the students and families so news from home makes it to school and back again.

The main mode of transportation for the mentors is cheap, fast and easy to maneuver in the busy Gulu streets:  motorbikes! A number of us even cruised a little way out of town and into the bush, where the countryside is green, lush and covered in a mixture of tall grass, tasseling maize, and palm trees. I stopped at five different homes over the course of the day (which included a break at lunch for the local high school volleyball tournament) with Jefferey, who mentors 32 students in all.  The conversations were in the local language, and usually centered around the health of the family members and other happenings at home. It was a fascinating and humbling experience to be invited into homes, offered maize (like sweet corn, without the sweet, butter or salt!) and soda and hear the conversations translated from my mentor. What an incredible look into the real day-to-day experiences of a wonderfully hospitable and open culture.

So much of our trip has been enlightening and terrific. However, I feel it is only right to share some of our more anecdotal experiences as well.  In preparation for a cruise on the Nile which was planned for our time at Murchison Falls National Park (see Jason’s upcoming post), one of our members visited the Pharmacy asking for a motion sickness remedy. Upon leaving, walking to our restaurant and opening the box and reading the details, we found it was actually a remedy for morning sickness. This person was able to return the purchase for a full refund.

Ugandan vehicles have to be built to survive hard and bumpy roads in the dry season and large mud puddles and slicks in the wet season. Our vehicle was from the Invisible Children office, and held up wonderfully for our long hours on the road. One afternoon, as we were about halfway through a five our trek, we stopped to stretch. As soon as everyone was out of the car, we heard a hissing and looked; our rear tire was losing air, and quickly went completely flat.  Luckily we had a spare with us, but the jack we had wasn’t tall enough to get the vehicle far enough off the ground! The next hour (maybe more) was spent trying to place the tire in the perfect pothole, while keeping the axel on high ground so  we would be able to get the tire off. The truly ironic part was that this was one of the smoothest gravel roads we had been on in days…

More stories to come!

–Audrey Mohr

P.S.   Wanna see how the whole thing started?  Check out the earlier Africa trip posts:

On the ground in Africa
Africa Trip: Day 1, Audrey
Africa Trip: Day 1, Maura

My name is Andrew Goldberg and I recently had my Bar Mitzvah. As part of my Bar Mitzvah, I chose to do a Mitzvah project. This is a social action project where I got to choose something that was important to me. I wanted to do something with Better World Books, since I really believe in the work they are doing and the non-profit organizations they support.

I asked people to purchase children’s books through the Books For Africa link on the Better World Books website. I have been concerned about Africa’s debt and plight for a long time, and I thought this would be a good way to help.

The purchased books went to a local organization here in Little Rock, Arkansas that provides books for kids to read to their incarcerated mothers.  Then a portion of the proceeds went to Books for Africa, so my Mitzvah project helped both locally and globally. To my delight, many people purchased books. This was the first time many of my friends had heard of Better World Books and I encouraged them to continue supporting both BWB and Books for Africa.

On October 2nd and 3rd I had the opportunity to represent Better World Books (BWB) in Minneapolis/St. Paul at several events put on by our partner Books For Africa (BFA). Those two days were jammed packed with events that made me find my way around the twin cities, but were well worth the trip. My biggest take away is that BFA is a great partner for BWB. Everything about the trip reaffirmed how reputable an organization it is and made abundantly clear the important role it plays in the great task of confronting the obstacles to literacy and education in Africa.

The events ranged from breakfast with Dr. Augustine P. Mahiga, the Tanzanian Permanent Representative to the United Nations; lunch with Johnnie Carson, the Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs; a conference on Literacy and Education in 21st Century Africa co-hosted by the University of Minnesota and BFA; a recognition ceremony attended by President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed of Somalia; to a South African Braai at the BFA warehouse attended by South African Vice Consul General Gillian Motlhamme. Congresswoman Betty McCollum and Congressman Keith Ellison also participated in the events. At all of these events BFA was recognized for its work as the largest shipper of books to Africa. The presence of such distinguished guests attests to the importance of this endeavor.

But in addition to respect for BFA and the incredible outward facing mentality of the Minneapolis/St. Paul community, I think what brought all of these people together these two days is a deep passion about the issues facing the African continent particularly with respect to literacy and education. In his remarks at the conference, Secretary Carson stressed the important link between education and development stating that Africa’s greatest resource is its people. This theme was echoed throughout the weekend. There are many problems the 53 countries in Africa are facing but also enormous potential. The potential resides in its people and only through literacy and education can this potential be unleashed.

At the recognition event on Saturday I had the honor of accepting an award from BFA on behalf of BWB in recognition of our partnership with them. BFA’s executive director, Pat Plonski, told the story of how he received a phone call 6 years ago from this kid (BWB co-founder, Xavier Helgesen) who said he wanted to run a book drive and support BFA. Pat said sure and a few months later received a check for $1000. The kid called him back and said he wanted to continue to support them and the next check Pat got was for $20,000. And now Pat receives a $20,000 check every month from the organization that this kid started 6 years ago.

At BWB we harness the power of capitalism to provide crucial funding that allows organizations like BFA to do what they do. We have been essential to their growth. But, BFA has also been essential to the growth of BWB. It’s a mutually beneficial partnership, a win-win. So let’s remember why we support organizations like BFA who are directly addressing literacy and education in the world, and let’s continue to push forward in this endeavor.

Great news!  As you probably already know, promoting literacy has always been woven into the fabric of our business.  Now we’re delighted to announce we’ve given an ownership stake to our non-profit literacy partners.   Yup…we’ve granted Incentive Stock Options to these partners – as far as we know, a first for social enterprise.

The purpose of the plan, put together with the help of our primary investor, Good Capital, is to ensure that our literacy partners can have a stake in and share in our financial success.

We’ve put aside roughly 5% of the company for use in stock option grants to an initial group of five literacy partners (with potential to add others in the future):  Books for Africa, Invisible Children, Room To Read, WorldFund and the National Center for Family Literacy.

One of our fearless leaders Xavier Helgesen puts it best:  “We created Better World Books to show that it is possible to do good while at the same time run a successful company.  Our literacy partners are essential to our mission, and we want them to flourish.  Today’s announcement ensures that as our company grows, our partners will too.”

Check out the press release to get all the details. Or read more about it at Change.org.

We are so proud of what your support has been able to do for our Non-Profit partners.  So far we have:

With your help, Books for Africa, Invisible Children, Worldfund, Room to Read and the National Center for Family Literacy are doing amazing things to increase literacy around the world!

Thanks!  And please keep spreading the word!

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.

Everyone is doing their part, be it lighting the Space Needle in Seattle in honor of Project (RED) or donating a few cents from each delicious warm beverage, and Better World Books is no different.  A woman who is literate in Africa is twice as likely to avoid AIDS. So when you see that we’ve shipped over 1,000,000 books to Africa and are the primary source of funding for Books for Africa, you know that we’re not just talking about reading great books, we’re talking about changing lives.

Tell a friend about World AIDS Day, because the disease may be getting less press, but it’s no less pressing.

The momentum was unbelievable – there were two congresspeople in attendance, and an address to the audience recorded by none other than Kofi Annan, former secretary general of the UN.

Better World Books is still easily Books For Africa’s largest source of funding, and we presented them with a $95,000 check just to remind everyone. BWB delivers more funding (and a lot of books!) than they receive from OPEC, USAID, or the Minnesota Vikings, all supporters as well.

So Better World Books, be proud of every day you spend working. As Tom Warth, BFA’s founder says, “the children of Africa thank you”.

I met Mulbah earlier this year in his hometown.  He is a Liberian college student in his early twenties who has spent most of his life coping with the twenty years of civil war that ravaged his country through 2003.  Mulbah is a persistent guy.  Though we initially spoke for less than ten minutes, as I was rushing off to our next meeting, Mulbah made sure to collect my contact information so that he could keep the conversation going.  Before I had even made it back home to California I had this e-mail waiting for me [ed.: misspellings kept, sic neglected]:

Dear Justin,
I am very happy to extend my sincere greeting to you, including your family members, love one, friends and the entire Better World .
Sir, you give me your call card including you E-mail address at the ALPP/ Creative Associates International Inc. office which is commonly called Bong LRC during your trip to Africa for Vision In Action, Million Books Match for Africa.
Justin, you and are got into conversation but we did not end due to your busy schedule, that is I graduated since 2004-2005, and I started my Freshman Courses at the Cuttington University, Suakoko, Bong County but due to lack of finance I drop from school and my parents don’t have money to sponser my education. […]

It’s Mulbah [redacted].

He wanted to know if I could help him find a scholarship to continue his study of economics at Cuttington University – one of the schools that has received books through the partnership between Better World Books, USAID, and Vision In Action.  Though I did not have the personal means to help him pay for college I wanted to find a way to help him continue his education.

Liberia is starving for books.  During the civil war nearly all of the books in the country were used as fuel for fires, libraries and schools were torn apart to harvest the scrap metal for weapons production, and many of the most educated and successful people in the country left forever because they feared for their lives.  Bas a result, there is a serious ‘book famine’ which keeps people like Mulbah from accessing information that could radically transform his life.

I decided to send some books to Mulbah.  It’s great to work for a company like Better World Books that makes it easy and inexpensive to send a book to literally any corner of the world.  I sent two economics books to Mulbah in two separate shipments – I wanted to see if they would actually arrive.  One made it, the other didn’t.

Dear Justin,

Thanks you and your family for the book sent last month the 20 of May 2008.
To be audacious to you I received it succeswsfully today the 27 of May 2008, therefore may the Lord our God bless you and your family.

Justin, I appreciate the book you sent to be specific Economics, A self Teaching Guide this wounderful book is rich and I am sure that I will read it to the best of my ability and achieve what I wish to achieve, Meanwhile, I have been wishing to have advanced Economics book like this. You did not make a mistake okay.

Here comes the order numbers and the Title of the book: Economics A Self Teaching Guide, order No. 2735151. But, as per the order Email sent to me the last time, one of the book was left out, it is consider missing in Transit? Because I was Email by you that, the End of Poverty Economics possibilities for our Time was to come alone with this book, Economic A Self Teaching Guide  to my surprise only one came so please find out from help@betterworldbooks.com, I did not receive this book.

Justin, I will Email you in one week time for the photo of the book in order to be trustful or convince.

I have more thanks and appreciation to come pretty soon but this is urgent just to remind you about the situation. By God grace you will receive comprehensive letter from me.

God will bless you and your family at your working places, and God will bless your families, you will never be the tail but rather be the head of all activities both in you community and your working places.

Mulbah soon began sharing this book with others in his community, and students started looking to him for assignments:

Good Afternoon Justin?

Sorry for long time no communication it is due to the up and down movement in and around the Nation capital Monrovia.

Justin, My ideas and toughts about the BWB is fine and I am taking the advangage of it to read through out the night because of this book students in and around my communities appreciate the effort a lot, Majority of them come to me for assignment and because of this book I am able to do their assignment for them as well. As I told you that the book is rich not only in words but also in meaning.

My knowledge about this Economics since the arrival date up to now are: I have been able to study on the following topics: Market and the type of markets, monopoly, oligolopoly, Demand and Supply, the Equilibium of demand and supply, Taxization, Barter system, Money the function of money, Banking system and Percentage of price of the goods and commodity.

Justin, this book will help me a lot, I will utilized this book up to the beginnig of university freshmen to graduation. Let met share my experience with you while I was in the senior class 12 grade, my Physics instructor told me “Mulbah, do not feel because you are scoring 85%, 95% in physics to do physics at the University, physics will make you to spend a lot time in University but try to do Economics which will make yo to spend 4 years and obtain your degree instead of you spending 5-6 years, reason he said this was you don’t have sponser and you are from the poor family so from here I started growing interest in Economics this is how I took Economics to be my lovely Subject and praying to obtain my degree in Economics if possibility exist.

Have a good day Justin.

We have been in regular touch and have sent upwards of 50 e-mails back and forth about everything from the ‘4th of July holiday’ in the United States, to Mulbah’s brief struggles with a bout of dysentery (he’s fine now).  We have connected, and continued to foster a relationship, through literacy.  He recently sent 3 photographs to me as a token of his appreciation (scanned in this post).  It is pretty amazing to hold a letter in your hands that has just arrived to your house from rural Liberia.

A couple of weeks ago I shipped a few more books to Mulbah.  They have not arrived yet, but I’m hoping that the Liberian postal system can make it happen.  Without Better World Books this would never have been possible.

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/.

Over at the Red and Black, the student newspaper of the University of Georgia wrote an article that simultaneously talks about how sweet we are:

Better World Books has given more than 864,600 books directly to Books for Africa, as well as the National Center for Family Literacy, which helps here in the United States.  They’ve also raised $900,000 of unrestricted funding for Books for Africa, www.booksforafrica.org, since May of 2002.

A warehouse full of books at the Books for Africa headquarters in Minnesota is useless without the incredible amount of funding necessary to ship the books all the way to Sudan, Darfur or Ethiopia. This unrestricted funding ships the books across the Atlantic, and ensures their transportation inland to different countries and villages.

It’s hard to comprehend being forced to share my only book with six other students, but Fresew said that is the case, even in Africa’s private schools.

while talking about what the local Bulldogs can do to help:

As you finish your finals, get closure on that ridiculously hard class – take a walk to one of the bright green boxes that says, “Book Drives for Better Lives,” and let the bane of your semester save someone else’s life. I promise you, it’s worth it.

Check out the full article here.

Cuttington University (map) is a rural 4-year university in Liberia . It is the oldest coed 4-year university in West Africa , considered by many to be the country’s most prestigious institution of higher education. It also happens to be quite close to the farm of Charles Taylor, the former president of Liberia who is currently on trial at the International Court of Justice in the Hague .

So here’s what I mean about “starting from zero”… four years ago, this prestigious university had no roofs on its buildings and no books in its library. The campus was ransacked during the wars… most of the books in the library were burned as fuel for fires.

Our group was able to meet with leaders from the university and hear their needs. Better World Books has committed to funding, through Books for Africa, the shipment of two 40-foot sea containers full of books (that’s 80,000 books) to Liberia for the country’s universities.

Cuttington is in dire need of books, so Liberia ’s brightest minds can be educated to help pull this country out of war-ravaged poverty. I think I speak for everyone at Better World Books when I say that we’re honored to be helping Cuttington.

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

I am sending a few pictures of the library permanent crew and my students. We had a barbecue of merguez (grilled mutton sausage) and all the trimmings the first day we were back in class. We are on campus not too far from the library. I hope you both enjoy them.

Martha Schouten and English students
ELF Es-Senia
Oran Algeria

*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.

Dear Pat and Sarah Lynne and all the people from Books for Africa and Better World Books,

I speak for all of my students at Es-Senia University Department of English when I say we are thrilled and thankful to have received in our storehouse the 688 boxes of books from you today. More than 50 of us helped to unload the truck, take pictures, and otherwise celebrate the long awaited arrival of your generous donation. After finding a safe storage room to temporarily put the books before dispatching them to the different university libraries the English club members helped me give a reception for the university workers and all the students who helped in the day’s work.

Algerians and especially the youth want so much to open up to the world, to learn languages, to visit and share ideas and to have visitors from other countries come also to visit this beautiful country so varied in culture and landscape.  Thank you again for trusting us with this wonderful gift of support in learning the English language and enlarging our knowledge of American culture. We will continue to send pictures, newspaper articles and e-mails to keep you up to date with our future activities.

Best regards,
Martha Schouten and English students
ELF Es-Senia
Oran Algeria

This is Books for Africa’s first shipment to Algeria , and the shipping was completely funded by the newly-established Better World Books Fund for Books for Africa . We’ve been following the story of this shipment since September – here are the previous blog postings:

Better World Books Funds Shipment to the University of Oran in Algeria
University of Oran gets ready for books!
University of Oran update

Here are some more pictures from the arrival!

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!

Fall ’05 – 149 cartons (3,427 books)*
Spring ’06 – 284 cartons (6,532)
Fall ’06 – 109 cartons (2,507)
Spring ’07 – 116 cartons (2,668)

*based on average of 23 books per carton

So how have they had such success?  I’ve never heard Ana say she was doing something incredibly out of the ordinary, per se, but instead they just know how to use the resources provided to them in an effective manner.  Between

• on a cold day (they get a few of those in Ontario) ”Give a book get a hot chocolate,” to
• large banners created at the print shop to advertise in the student center to
• a heavy advertising campaign with articles such as this in the campus e-bulletin and getting the word out to both teachers and students to
• the much appreciated and helpful assistance of the wonderful folks at the University of Guelph bookstore to
• painting the cannon on campus (apparently you can paint a large cannon and as long as someone hangs out at it then no one can paint over it until you leave) to
• the very awesome idea of putting a sign on their backpacks that says “ASK ME ABOUT OUR BOOK DRIVE!” with the dates and locations on it to
• a thermometer showing how many books they collected with a goal to
• a donor appreciation day with a raffle to get people out to
• well you get the picture, they get what they need to do!

Here are some of the volunteers (including Ana) reppin’ BFA and Better World Books.

Martha Schouten, from the University of Oran in Algeria (previously blogged here) sent me this picture of her just-renovated office, featuring one of the school’s teachers and some of the English Club members. The university has enlarged the room so they can fill it with some of the books that will be coming in a Books for Africa container any day now! We’ll have more updates when the container gets there – stay tuned.

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

+ + YOU    =

Changing people’s lives.

The website suggests:
This award recognizes individuals whose long history of service to the campus, State University, local community or professional societies/organizations sets them apart as well as those who have demonstrated extraordinary leadership in local or system-wide faculty governance.

You can read the full description of his excellent works, but you’ll notice that one reason he is receiving this award is of particular interest:

[Al] works with the Center for Learning and Teaching and the Institute for Student-Centered Learning. Vos, campus organizer and coordinator of the Books for Africa campaign, also contributes time and expertise to other community initiatives.

Congratulations, Al, you’ve always been a committed and excellent representative of Better World Books and Books for Africa, and this award is well deserved!

Many, many, many of these books are from Better World Books… The university [St. John's University, Dodoma, Tanzania] staff were extremely pleased with the books according to our BFA staff, and indicated great appreciation to the donors.  Apparently, the university was running the risk of being closed down by the government due to a lack of a proper library, so these books were critical to education and allowing the university to stay open.

Thanks.

Best regards,

–Pat

Patrick Plonski
Executive Director
Books For Africa

Hey all, just got the latest news from Books for Africa via their Fall Newsletter and it’s very exciting!

First of all, BFA has shipped 17.5 million primary, secondary, post-secondary and library books to 35 (that’s right, 35!) countries since 1988.  This year alone they sent 119 containers to 22 different countries from Angola to Kenya to Zimbabwe and more.

In addition, to all of you Books For Africa supporters out there, go to www.betterworld.com/bfa when you want to buy books and click on the BFA logo, this will ensure that the proceeds put towards a literacy partner of any book that you purchase will go to Books for Africa!

Also, Books for Africa’s Donor Appreciation Day will be on Sasturday, November 17th from 3:30 – 6:30 at 715 East Minnehaha Ave, St. Paul, MN 55106.  Music, refreshments and light hors d’oeuvres will be provided along with a warehouse open house to “see what all the excitement is about!”  Volunteers, donors and friends are all invited!

One of the exhibits was a Books for Africa table at which we signed up volunteers and shared information about the success of the project.

The Cross Cultural Association headed by Elizabeth Moreno, Victor Decouto, and Chiara de Leon have run wildly successful book drives on behalf of Books for Africa for the past three semesters. Last year they collected a total of 2,908 books, raised $1,742 for student scholarships, saved 746 books from ending up in landfills and sent 329 books directly to Books for Africa .

Thank you so much for all your great work!

]]> http://blog.betterworldbooks.com/2007/10/10/kudos-la-salle/feed/ 0 http://blog.betterworldbooks.com/2007/10/02/update-better-world-books-fund/ http://blog.betterworldbooks.com/2007/10/02/update-better-world-books-fund/#comments Tue, 02 Oct 2007 21:38:37 +0000 admin http://www.betterworldblog.com/PermaLink,guid,2cccad9f-b5c1-4ebc-9ece-efd5f690519e.aspx Here’s a letter from Pat Plonski, the Executive Director of Books for Africa, with an email message from a recent recipient of a container of 35,000 books, which left the Books for Africa warehouse in July:


Hey guys!  Just got this message from Guinea where a Better World Books Fund-sponsored container just landed.  As you see, they are very happy!   This e-mail speaks for itself.   The Better World Books Fund paid the full cost of this container ($9,000), so all of the credit is yours!  Thanks.

–Pat

THANK YOU!

Hhhhhhuuuuuuurrrrrraaaaayyyyyyy! shouted the teachers as the container reaches Sabu campus. Yesterday was a sigh of relief with great excitement to see the accomplishment of this historic project.  You must feel very proud that your goal has been achieved. We thank you for creating such an environment that will touch the growth of many lives.

You will receive letters and pictures from all the schools that will benefit from this resources.

We thank you for being a family we can always count on. We have been and will continue to works towards our commitment of educating the children.

Thank you all.

Samuel Thoronka
Sabu International School
Conakry, Guinea

[ed: The following letter is from Pat Plonski of Books for Africa to David Murphy, CEO of Better World Books, it talks about the exciting steps that BFA and BWB are taking to make more impact and make sure the money that you help raise is going to the right places!]

Hello David–

Just wanted to show you these latest numbers regarding the incredible impact being made by the Better World Books Fund of Books for Africa in just the last two and one half months. Including the container that we just sent yesterday to Ghana, the Better World Books Fund has leveraged the delivery of 13 containers of books (400,000 books) to eight countries valued at $2.3 million. We have shipped to Kenya, Tanzania, Guinea, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Algeria, and Ghana. Not bad for 12 weeks! The establishment of the Better World Books Fund has frankly transformed our shipping operation by allowing Books for Africa to leverage donations from individuals who cannot afford to pay for a full container, and by allowing us to ship to countries never before served by BFA. Book shipments at Books for Africa are up dramatically this fiscal year, and are in fact on a track to increase by at least 50% over last year.

So that’s the latest. Shipments are way up in large part to the Better World Books Fund. About half of our shipments over the past 12 weeks have been in collaboration with Better World Books. Of course, those regular payments designated for unrestricted funding (which we receive from you on a monthly basis) to underwrite our ongoing operations are also coming in very handy.

Thanks much for all you and the Better World Books team is doing. We expect to reach our goal of shipping 20 million books to Africa next year and our collaboration with BWB has been a key element in our success.

–Pat

Patrick Plonski
Executive Director
Books for Africa

Help End the Book Famine in Africa! View the BFA Story

Martha Schouten, an English Language Fellow teacher at the University of Oran in Algeria , contacted Books For Africa (BFA), to see if BFA could help replenish their library with English language books after many years of neglect. Currently, the University’s books in English are dated in the 1980’s or before.

During the 1990’s Algeria experienced civil war and domestic terror. Since 1999 little has changed – militant splinter groups continue their campaign against the government, and the army continues its own campaign against the rebels, amid accusations of corruption and brutality. This has undeniably created an atmosphere of insecurity in the general population.

As over half of Algeria’s population are young people, there are many issues for Algerian students. These concern future job opportunities, information available (or unavailable) to them, and the extreme feeling of uncertainty in almost all domains of their lives. In spite of this, Martha’s students are so very eager to know as much as possible about the outside world, and to travel and study in foreign countries.

To aid the beneficiaries of BFA donations, Better World Books has created a special Fund for Books For Africa. This Fund is designed to pay for the shipping costs of these containers of books. The Fund paid $9,000 in shipping costs for this one container.

The 40-foot container of books will be heading out today to the University. It is the first shipment that Books For Africa has sent to Algeria! The demand for university books in Africa remains enormous.