African Library Project
This is the third blog from Ashley Kahn about her recent trip to Lesotho with Amy Jo Carson, ALP’s Lesotho Country Liaison.
The village of Bokone is special to Amy Jo Carson. A part of Amy’s heart belongs to the Majara family, their house and village, as that’s where she resided the first three months of her Peace Corp deployment. While she was there, she read with the Majara family and with children in the village.
ALP not only creates libraries; it also stays in touch with our African partners to be sure the libraries are working effectively. And when possible, helps make them even better. On a recent trip to Lesotho, Amy Jo Carson and Ashley Kahn found a fun way to reorganize one library and celebrate literacy in the community.
One of the libraries we visited was to the Kick 4 Life’s Hope Community Center. Kick 4 Life is a football club dedicated to social change through HIV/AIDS education and care, sport, and a thriving social enterprise.
ALP is working to send a container of books to Lesotho this fall to create 35 new libraries. We still need Book Drive Organizers, who can complete a book drive by September 1. Click here to find out what’s involved and how to sign up. As you will read below, two ALP volunteers recently visited Lesotho and saw how libraries are working in the community and what more is needed.
ALP’s Lesotho Liaison, Amy Jo Carson, and I recently traveled to Lesotho. Our first stop was Malealea, a beautiful village in the Mafeteng District of Lesotho. Its enchanting mountainous views are delightful to tourists and natives alike. Unfortunately, like the majority of rural inhabitants, the people of Malealea often do not have access to educational supplies or even an education.
When Samantha and her Brownie leader agreed that their second-grade troop would do a book drive for a library in Africa, they thought that the troop would collect 1000 books for one primary school library in Malawi. But when the PTA president at Field Elementary School in Elmhurst, Il, heard about the book drive, she suggested including all the Girl Scout troops at Field. The book drive grew from one troop to five, and the parents and children at Field donated not 1000 books but over 5000. The result: four new primary school libraries in Malawi.
