Book Aid International

Book Aid International at work in Zimbabwe.

I hardly ever bought books in Zimbabwe - the runaway inflation meant that any 'luxury' items were usually out of reach (Mum and I bought one bow of Smarties a month and shared it over the course of a few days. It was our biggest treat). Instead, we make a weekly trip to the Mount Pleasant library every week, where yellowing index cards were stored in musty drawers and the books were all covered in brittle plastic with numbers on the spines. There were hardly ever any new books - the most recent had been printed in the sixties or seventies, and the bulk of the stock was from even earlier in the twentieth century. I devoured Georgette Heyer's regency novels as a teenager (still do), and the library had a lot of 1930s and '40s editions of her books, taped together and threatening to explode on contact. And this was in a pretty well-off neighbourhood in the capital city, back in the 1990s. Even our school books were decades old (until I went to the International School) - and again, this was at private schools in the capital. In the rural areas and less well-funded schools, it was far more unlikely that children would have access to modern books in good condition - or any books at all.

Once, Zimbabwe led Africa in literacy rates. Since 1995, however, education and literacy (along with everything else) have declined dramatically. School fees and books are prohibitively expensive for many, and a large percentage of Zimbabwe's best teachers have left the country. Libraries have suffered too. Books are knowledge and freedom and adventure and opportunity and escape and friendship and doorways to other lives and ways of being. Sometimes I forget how lucky I am to have access to libraries and bookstores. Our house is filled with books. It is easy to take them for granted. Book Aid International never does, and they do an amazing job of providing books to sub-Saharan Africa; raising literacy levels, providing information and underpinning development.

A representative from the charity said:

"We really aren't a very big charity, but can achieve a lot with very little, so for £2 or $3 we can get one brand-new book from our warehouse in South London, to a library in rural sub-Saharan Africa. We don't have staff on the ground in Africa, but instead work in partnership with national library services or NGOs who annually fill out feedback forms with their users' needs. We then utilise our relationships within the UK publishing industry to provide books to meet those needs as best we can."

Go here to donate. I've got a few ideas for some fundraising bloggy events for Book Aid during the year - stay tuned!