Friday 26th March: Spice island libraries

Hannah: Flying over the water to Zanzibar, a semi-autonomous island 2 hours off the coast of Tanzania. We were met at immigration by Hamid Juma, Director of the Zanzibar Library Service. Their spanking new library in Stone Town, the capital city of the island, is one of the most beautiful library buildings we’ve seen this trip, with the traditional carved doors of the area. They are still settling in, but they are clearly trying new ways of displaying their stock, especially in the children’s section which was bright, airy and included lots of posters and child friendly bookshelves.

Rob: Then we began the whirlwind section of our day, as we get around 6 more libraries that fall into two main groups – Teachers Centres which also serve as district libraries for communities, and primary schools where the pupils have been benefitting from small ‘book boxes’ of fiction books for children in both Swahili and English. We are hoping to receive funding to extend this scheme to ten more schools and wanted to see how the model was working.

Karen: For me, the most memorable visit of the day was to Bububu primary school, which serves around 6000 children who attend in two shifts, served by nearly 70 teachers. Class sizes can be up to 70, and textbooks may have to be shared by 10 children, who are fitted into the classrooms by sitting on the floor without any furniture. Despite this, Hamid tells us it’s considered one of the best schools in the area, with an unusually high number of children going on to study at secondary school. With this many children, it’s clear the number of fiction books provided by the book box can never be sufficient, but the headmaster still allows the children to borrow the books, encouraging their interest in reading both English and Swahili. We were surprised to see how enthusiastic young children are about reading and understanding English – primary school is taught in Swahili and secondary school is taught in English, but they all seemed very aware of how learning English early on could help their chances later. We will need to talk more about how the project could be expanded, but we finish our last official visit feeling optimistic about the opportunities to help development in libraries in Tanzania and Zanzibar.

We are writing this on a terrace overlooking Stone Town in Zanzibar, with a well deserved drink at our elbows. Looking back on the week, Karen is tired but optimistic, and will be going back to Camberwell, London with a renewed sense of purpose. Hannah has got some great footage of the readers of our books and can’t believe how much of a difference they can make – it’s been a great opportunity to find out what happens after the funding comes in! And Rob would be relaxing, but is already thinking about his next trip to Zimbabwe in May, where no doubt he will be blogging enthusiastically – and Karen will be following up the contacts she makes in a project development trip in July for what we hope will be the first of many repeat visits to Tanzania.

Thursday 25th March: Breakfast with Monkeys

Karen: The need to fend of the attentions of monkeys keen on my breakfast banana was not helped by another early start, as we left Tanga and headed back ‘home’ to Dar es Salaam after two nights away.


We were held up by a couple of the all too frequent road accidents, and were late for our second meeting with Mama Africa at the Central Library. Luckily, we were still able to get some great footage of children enjoying their new space and an interview with the ever-inspiring Mama Africa herself.

Hannah: Our last appointment in Dar-es-Salaam was at the headquarters of the Open University of Tanzania (OUT). They have a very good library with mostly relevant books, which according to the librarian are about 90% donated by Book Aid International. They are dealing with the problems of overcrowding as their courses become ever more popular, by seating students outside in two large permanent tents. We are more used to seeing reading tents for children, but it was heartening to see how busy it was as people finished their day jobs and got on with studying together.

Rob: We are long standing supporters of OUT, and it’s great to see opportunities given to people who may otherwise have missed out on the chances that education can offer. An early night was in order as a 5am start beckoned as we prepared to leave Dar after a packed 5 days and travel by ferry to Zanzibar.

Clara's running a half marathon!

Hi! Let me introduce myself – I am Clara and work as a Trusts Fundraiser here at Book Aid International.

When the subject of the half marathon came up a few months ago, my initial reaction was one of both horror and disbelief. How could anyone even contemplate tackling such a distance! Who would voluntarily put themselves through the blood, sweat and tears of gruelling training sessions? ‘Me’ was the last word on my mind at this stage!


> Photo: my underused trainers - they won't know what's hit them!



And yet here I am, bracing myself for the 13-mile race on Sunday 12 October. Despite my original worries, the reasons I’m so happy to be taking part in it are in fact multiple. Improved fitness, the sense of achievement, but most importantly raising much-needed funds to get books out to sub-Saharan Africa where they are most desperately needed! Literacy is something we fully take for granted from childhood here, which makes the statistic that 1/5 of the world’s adults are illiterate all the more staggering.

To live life without being able to read a map, a medicine bottle or a voting ballot is something we Westerners can hardly even fathom. By sending out over 500,000 new and carefully selected books each year, Book Aid International is trying to help solve the chronic book shortage and empower Africans to make informed decisions about their everyday lives. At a cost of just £1.25 to send a brand-new book, each and every donation really does go a long way.

I hope you will share my marathon journey with me. If you feel inspired to encourage me through the pain barrier with some sponsorship, I have set up a Just Giving page here.

This weekend I am to be dusting off my trainers for a run around Battersea Park – look forward to updating you on how I fare!

Clara

Eritrea Day 2 - Clive's journey continues

Today fulfilled all our expectations - offering us a chance to see the beauty of the Eritrean countryside and also to see the very positive impact that our books are having on readers.

It offered an improvement on yesterday's frantic pace by quite a long way. At seven Beth and I, accompanied by Micahel and Gebrnegus set off in the cool of a high altitude morning. Asmara sits at about 7,500 ft above sea level - for the two hour trip to Keren. You drop some 5,000 feet in 100 km, and it is one of those drives with breathtaking scenery which you take in during moments when you're not holding your breath as you round yet another hairpin bend wondering whether there might be something coming the other way. The heat also rises with every meter dropped and every minute that passes.

Keren, when you finally reach it, is small town, nestling in a ring of imposing hills. The scene of crucial battles, a little known battle in the Second World War which led to the fall of Eritrea and Ethiopia, and a famous battle which provided the springboard for the victory of the Eritreans in their war of liberation. Keren is of tremendous historical significance, and history is much on our minds and in the conversation as we travel. After lunch we stop briefly at the British cemetry outside the town.

Again we visit a range of libraries, all of them with many well used copies of books sent by Book Aid International and we are made to feel extremely welcome everywhere. Beth is able to talk in some detail to the librarians about what is really useful to them and their readers, and where the gaps are. There is a huge range, from the Islamic School where they are in the middle of a move from Arabic as the language of instruction to English in order, as the Director Mr Mohammed puts it, to reach international standards; to the Keren public library whose librarian, Aster Berhe provides a wonderful service for students and general readers, a children's reading programme on Saturdays, and special programmes for disabled people, to a secondary school highly used with extremely well kept statistics on the use made of its books.

> Photo: young reader enjoying a story book at the Islamic school

Another secondary school has plans to expand to include an outdoor section with concerete tables and benches for the hot summer months when the temperature rises to 46C. A community library has set up three readers' clubs with 20 members each, with two or three people reading a book and discussing it with the group as a way of making best use of few copies. In the late afternoon we end up at the agricultural college which, like all the technical colleges in the country, is preparing to accept a huge new intake in January following a reorganisation of technical education. They have an excellent library and, as they show us around the premises, they take us to see the vineyards set up under the Brothers of de la Salle; you can, of course, buy some of the fruits of their labours and we all come away with at least one bottle and some cactus jam.

> Photo: Beth Murphy, Book Aid International librarian

with Aster Berhe at Keren Public Library

We wind our way back up to Asmara, reaching the hotel after 8.00, with emails to catch up on, blogs to write and pictures to transfer. But a great day demonstrating once again the tremendous work being done by so many committed people to make the education system, supported by a dynamic library service, work despite huge obstacles.

Clive's Eritrean journey

Beth Murphy and I have just spent a busy day with our partners, the British Council and Ministry of Education in Asmara, the capital of Eritrea. We arrived yesterday after a long overnight flight via Cairo which allowed for very little sleep and a 4am arrival. After a few hours rest we had a walk around the incredible and well preserved if somewhat decayed, art deco city centre, and a wonderful welcome at a traditional coffee ceremony with the family of a colleague. Then an early night in anticipation of a very busy day, though the combination of too much coffee and the excitement of a new place made sleep difficult.

We started our first day with a briefing at the British Council with the acting Director Mefsin Habtetsion and our main contact Michael Tekie who is in charge of the very impressive management and librarian training programmes run by the Council, and will be accompanying us on our visits to the various schools and institutions in the course of the week. Part of the training for the librarians is in the Library Information Management System which has been developed by the British Council in Eritrea for use in school and community libraries. We were fortunate that a training programme was in progress and we were introduced to the class, learning the system and the computer skills need to operate it. On being told who we were, one of the participants, a secondary school teacher, said “we are proud of Book Aid who send us new books”, a great endorsement for our work so early in the visit.

A key part of the tour was, of course, to see the Book Aid International shipment which has recently arrived in Asmara and is being sorted for distribution by Kisseri Mehreteab. It is a huge task with over 14,000 books in the shipment. As Michael said, “the book famine in Eritrea has been minimized because of Book Aid International”. But without our local partners, the books would never reach their readers.

During the day, accompanied by Gebrenegus Berhane who is in charge of libraries at the Ministry of Education, we visited a range of libraries at a junior school, a secondary school, a technical college and the nursing college. We were struck by how well organised all the libraries were, although there is not heavy usage at present as the schools have just opened for the new academic year. It is clear that there is still a great need for more books, especially in the sciences and English language. One striking thing about the schools is that there is now parity between the number of girls and boys at secondary level, a new development since Book Aid International’s last visit three years ago. And teachers we talked to all said that girls were doing better in their studies than boys, a familiar story to people coming from the UK, but especially encouraging in the African context.

Between school visits we managed to squeeze in meetings with John Stops, the recently arrived VSO Country Director and the British Ambassador. VSO are involved in a major education programme with 39 volunteers placed in schools and other institutions, and we discussed the possibility of developing wider co-operation between ourselves, VSO and the Ministry. Nick Ashbury, the Ambassador, was helpful in briefing us on the situation in Eritrea and the position of NGOs. It can be a difficult environment, but Book Aid International has good relations with the Ministry of Education and we expect that there will be no problem in extending our partnership agreement.

It has been an exhausting, but hugely informative day. It is my first visit to see what happens to some of the hundreds of thousands of books I see every day in the Camberwell warehouse, and to meet the key people who make sure that at this end, the right book gets to the right person. In Eritrea, at least, they seem to be doing a wonderful job. Tomorrow we go to Keren and Hagaz, two hours to the north of Asmara. More libraries and another interesting day awaits us.