Friday 7th May: Book handovers, pigs and Bob Mugabe

The morning begins with a visit to the British Council, who provide valuable assistance in clearing the BAI shipments into Zimbabwe, and are happy to continue to do so. We then proceed to a book handover ceremony involving 11 high schools that receive book donations from the Harare Distribution Committee. Very smart pupils in blazers are in attendance and the occasion goes well. I am interviewed by the Herald newspaper afterwards and talk soundbites - education is the route out of poverty, books change lives!

After the ceremony we head out of Harare to a rural high school, St John's. The school is well kept and has an impressive quality about it. It turns out that the students have built ¾ of the school buildings themselves and they are of a good quality too. The library is big but mostly full of outdated books, except for a number received recently from BAI. Most of the BAI books are kept behind the librarian's desk for reference only. The borrowing record shows that the pupils are avid readers, and the head talks about this 'injection and infusion of books' which has helped pupils to 'explore and learn new things', including one student who has learnt to play guitar with a BAI book. After the library, we have a tour of the schools grounds and see pigs, rabbits and vegetable gardens which are all key ingredients to keeping the school self-sufficient. Impressively, around 500 of the 800 pupils are girls. Unfortunately, over the road at the primary school, the library has a desolate and dusty air, and BAI books are hard to find amongst the shelves which tower over one side of the room. It is clear that the library needs better care and that to make the most of what is a reasonable space will require training. On the way back, the first of four motorcyclists is a sign that big Bob Mugabe's motorcade is about to pass, as it soon does, on his return from a state visit to Tanzania.

This brings me to the end of my visits in Harare. It seems that 2008 marked the nadir for Zimbabwe with the cholera outbreak, hyper-inflation and tensions on the street. People are beginning to cautiously look forward and things seem relatively back to normal but the future remains very uncertain, and there are worries that the peace will only last until the next election. Talking of elections, in the evening, I catch up belatedly with the UK election and am not too surprised to see that my old home town of Brighton has elected a green MP, but from here, the UK seems very distant and the politics of a hung parliament very far away.

The Cat in the Hat is book of the day

The day begins with a visit to the National Association of NGOs (NANGO) which has a small resource centre used by researchers and students. The next stop is an informal school run by the Viva Network, situated in the compound of Harare's Presbyterian church. Viva Network run a number of informal schools for street children and obtained BAI books from the Harare Distribution Committee about a year ago. The books are kept in plastic boxes with games and other educational resources. I sit in on an interactive reading of the Dr Seuss classic The Cat in the Hat which is followed up with a cat in the hat jigsaw puzzle which the kids takes turns to complete. Some of the older children are read or read themselves English readers and a book of folk tales in Shona, the local language. The school I visited has 60-70 children and the best will get support to go onto more formal schooling, and some former pupils now work for the Viva Network itself. The books are giving them a good start and are clearly enjoyed.

After the Viva Network, it is back to the world of academia with a visit to the Zimbabwe Open University, which like Open Universities elsewhere, aims to make higher education more accessible. I visit their regional centre library which is small for the number of students they have. BAI books are clearly in much demand, but much more are needed in subjects like economics, counselling, sports development and agriculture. And the centre I am visiting is one of ten! Nearly half the books must be from BAI and they have had no money to buy books for 3-4 years.

I end the day visiting the Zimbabwe Women's Resource Centre and Network (ZWRCN) which aims to empower women through the provision of information. The resource centre is well organised and has room for quite a number of readers, and the users range from students and researchers to NGO workers, and four of the users that I talk to are studying at the Women's University that I visited yesterday. To extend their services, ZWRCN are also working with two library services that I will be visiting next week - the Edward Ndlovu Memorial Library in Gwanda and the Rural Libraries and Resources Development Programme based in Bulawayo. In the evening I give a talk to Harare Central Rotary Club and once again it is clear that the work of Rotary here in Zimbabwe is very supportive of BAI's book donation programme.

Breakfast at dawn

I begin the day telling the Africa Dawn Rotary Club (it does indeed meet at dawn or rather just after at 7am!) about Book Aid International over a breakfast meeting and thank Rotary for their assistance which as well as distributing books includes organising activities during national literacy month and providing essential training for teacher-librarians. I visit ZACRO next, an impressive prison welfare organisation, supporting the rehabilitation of prisoners, which has set up 3 prison libraries utilising BAI books but wants to set up 65 more!

The Harare hospital is the next destination, where BAI books are much appreciated in the school of nursing, which now sees virtually all students pass thanks they say to BAI books – only 3 students failed in the last exams compared to 20 before and the books are the only real difference. The principal tutor tells me with a suitable medical analogy that 'what we teach them in class is only a skeleton, now students can research on their own'.

Next is City of Harare Libraries. The HQ library, Highfield, has deteriorated much since I visited it in 2002, with a leaky roof and stalactites forming! The other two I visit are not too bad, but the city library service, which has also introduced charges recently, is very under-resourced,and a far cry from what it used to be, despite the best intentions of its librarians. Library users tell me that they need more books on commerce but several were using BAI books on motor vehicle mechanics and accountancy. One named beautifully in the African way as Honest, was using a geography book but told me (appropriately to her name) that she would prefer a different one, Geography- An Integrated Approach, which is also one of BAI's most requested books!

Young Rotarians known as Rotaractors have been helping to set up a school mobile library scheme based on two clusters of schools. I visit the two schools that hold the main stock and whilst it is clear the scheme has some way to go, both schools are using the books and keen to encourage reading. The schools and the city library service discuss ways for pupils to also use the public library as the books available in the schools (which have 1800 pupils each) are too limited.

The last visit of a busy day takes me to the Women's University in Africa, a university we have been supporting since it started 8 years or so ago. Like many younger universities, it has an enthusiastic staff and is very appreciative of BAI support. The library only has 4000 books, about half of which are from BAI, and many BAI books were in use in the library.

Harare seems little changed at a glance, but economically the country has been hit hard. Everything is now paid for in $US and although the local Spar is once again full with as wide a range of food as anywhere else in the world (the shelves were empty not so long ago), and there is fuel for transport (which was not the case in 2002), it is clear that the $US is only providing a sticky plaster to bigger problems that have yet to be overcome. Libraries of all sorts have seen their budgets collapse and most cannot afford books any more.

I finish a busy day with a drink in the beautiful Bronte Hotel gardens before heading over the road to my cheaper hotel for a good night's rest!

Tuesday May 4: Book Aid International back in Zimbabwe

This is Rob Sarjant, BAI's Head of Programmes and Operations, reporting from Zimbabwe, on BAI's first visit there since 2004, and my first since 2002. I am expecting many changes as the last few years have been, as most people know, difficult in Zimbabwe but we have been told that things are now gradually improving and it is a good time to visit.

I touchdown in Harare a little late after cold fog delayed the connecting flight from Jo'burg. I drop my things off at the hotel and head straight to my first meeting which is with members of the Harare Distribution Committee, one of two committees in Zimbabwe that help clear our consignments through customs and distribute the books throughout Zimbabwe.

It is clear that they have done a tremendous job and are distributing books widely, often with the help of local Rotary clubs. I finish the day at the University of Zimbabwe Library where many BAI books are on reserve for 2 hours only borrowing as they are so popular. Books are sorted and distributed by the Committee at the University.

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.

Wednesday 24th March: Falling for Tanga

Karen: After a five hour drive, we arrived in Tanga on the coast above Dar es Salaam, and immediately went to see Tanga Regional Library, a beautiful building in dire need of repair. Holes in the roof and ceiling were being mended slowly and the stock was outdated, though very well organised with an eager new librarian looking to introduce new activities and restore the library to its former grandeur. After the stock is weeded to remove outdated books, a donation from Book Aid International could really make a difference – the library is obviously well used by the community in Tanzania’s third largest city.

Rob: We also had a visit to a secondary school in the area which had recently benefitted from renovation by volunteers from Read International, a UK based charity that we support with book donations. The library was created from what had been a ruin of a room, but again, book stock was very low for the number of children who were obviously keen to use it. Hannah filmed some great interviews, whilst Karen and I discussed what might be possible with some follow-up from Read International.


Hannah: Our last appointment was with a local NGO, the Tanga Youth Development Association, where we discussed the exciting possibility of setting up a community library in the region of Tanga to particularly benefit young people looking to maximise their opportunities in life.