It was an honor—and a great joy—to attend Harambee, the African Library Project‘s party and fundraiser event that happened this past Saturday in Menlo Park, CA in celebration of the project’s 5th anniversary.

The very well-attended evening of wonderful African food, music and dance included many highlights, such as founder Chris Bradshaw‘s speech about the project’s mission and accomplishments as well as the work still ahead (they have built over 500 libraries to date, in different countries in Africa, and hope to build countless more). Also inspiring were the testimonials from an African woman about what it was like to grow up in Rwanda without books, and from Becky Banton, from the African Library Project in Lesotho, who told us about the direct impact of ALP libraries in the lives of the children she has come to know and love. She told us, among other things, about one girl who has just started college: the same girl featured in one of the videos they showed in the beginning of the evening reading at her ALP school library (some years ago) and saying she would like to be able to go to college one day.

The evening also included the awarding of three Compassion Award plaques in recognition of individuals, one of them a 13-year-old boy, who have gone above and beyond in their commitment to help ALP build libraries and promote literacy in Africa.

Congratulations to Chris Bradshaw and to all who helped organize such an inspiring evening. We wish you continued success in your efforts to promote literacy and give children in rural areas of Africa a chance of a better life.

Following on from Aline’s post this week about the African Library Projects’s 5th anniversary celebration and fund-raising event, Harambee!, which means “Let’s pull together to get it done!” in Swahili, we bring you in full our new interview with the organisation’s founder, Chris Bradshaw. For more information and links, see the sidebar on Chris’ interview page on the PaperTigers website.

Chris founded the African Library Project (ALP) in 2005, with the goal of increasing literacy in Africa. Since then, with the help of literacy activist volunteers and organized book drives, ALP has created over 500 small, free lending libraries in various countries of Africa, such as Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland and Malawi.

Chris lives in Portola Valley, California.

PT: What motivated you to start the African Library Project?

CB: I spent my Junior Year Abroad studying in Sierra Leone and traveling throughout western and central Africa. I was deeply touched by the warmth of people and troubled by the potential lost in just trying to survive given the everyday challenges of extreme poverty. As a 20 year old, I felt overwhelmed by this and did not know what I could do that would have much of an impact.

Fast-forward 30 years to 2004… on a homeschooling field trip to southern Africa with my husband and two children, ages 9 and 13, while pony trekking in the tiny, remote mountain kingdom of Lesotho, I discovered there was just one library in the entire country. Noodling along on my horse, I couldn’t stop thinking about the US bookshelves overflowing with once-read books and landfills filling up with what would be a precious resource in Lesotho.

PT: How did the first library come about and what was the process of going from one library to more libraries like?

CB: When I got back to the village, I met with the manager of the lodge that had rented us our horses and asked if they had ever considered having a library. “We have always wanted a library, but did not know how to get books!” I offered to provide books if the local leadership would provide space and staffing for the library and commit to running it as a village enterprise. Two months later, I contacted them and they happily reported that the library building was half done! I was committed. The village decided to give the task of developing the library to a US Peace Corps Volunteer who was scheduled to arrive soon. I thought this was a great idea. If you have never seen a library, how would you know what to do?

A little miracle happened next. When the Peace Corps Volunteer arrived, she was a retired librarian! Together, along with many generous American book donors, we developed five small libraries throughout Malealea Valley, the first of now 562 African Library Project libraries.

Eventually, I decided to partner with Peace Corps Lesotho to establish libraries throughout the country. I found it inspiring to work with the smart, capable and passionate Americans who serve in Peace Corps. They and their villages were ecstatic to get books and many American schools and groups were eager to make a concrete and personal contribution to Africa.

PT: How do you determine which countries (and which towns and communities) will receive book donations?

CB: We’ve grown a lot since our first libraries. We will work in any stable English-speaking African country where we can find a suitable partner. Our partners are large African organizations whose mission is library development or education, usually NGOs or government branches, e.g., the Swaziland National Library Service. Our African partners vet the local library projects, bring our containers in, distribute the books, train teacher-librarians and track results. We ship 30-60 libraries each year to our partners, year after year, because it is efficient, economical and allows us to have a major impact by building a library movement within a country.

PT: What is involved in creating rural libraries?

CB: Most African cultures don’t have communal public institutions, as we know them, with the exception of schools. About 90% of our libraries are in schools and most of these are open to local villagers for checkout of books. Sometimes, (more…)

On behalf of the African Library Project, PaperTigers would like to invite you to Harembee!, a fundraiser in celebration of the project’s 5 years and 500 libraries. The event, whose goal is to raise funds to establish and sustain more libraries in rural Africa, will happen on Sep 11, in Menlo Park, California and includes cocktails, dinner, silent and live auctions, and entertainment provided by Zimbabwean Julia Chigamba and the Chinyakare Ensemble. For more details, click here. The deadline to RSVP is Sep 1.

To learn more about African Library Project’s meaningful work, read our interview with founder Chris Bradshaw.