OUR APPROACH
In the United States, our ambassadors collect, sort, and pack gently-used books to ship to specific African communities. They organize book drives in local schools and neighborhoods and raise modest funds to ship the books to our libraries.
In Africa, we work with communities to build these libraries. They receive the books and organize them into libraries to serve local African communities. Along the way, the U.S. donors learn about Africa and develop closer connections to the people in the recipient communities.
We work with community leaders, local governments and the community to build sustainable libraries.
WHY LIBRARIES?
- Most African children grow up without books, while U.S. bookshelves and landfills overflow with books no longer read.
- Africa has the highest percentage of illiteracy in the world.
- Books are the key to increasing literacy, and literacy is the #1 tool out of poverty.
- Many adult Africans lose their ability to read due to a lack of reading materials.
- Libraries are social learning spaces
- Libraries are places where individuals gather to interact, explore and imagine
- Libraries are Champions for youths
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
As of May 2019:
- We have secured a space for our first Public Library in the North West, Cameroon. Unfortunately, due to the conflict in this region, the library project has been suspended until further notice.
- We have gathered almost 10,000 books and almost half of these books have been shipped to Kenya and Zambia. SLUM
Our Ambassadors
Our Ambassadors are middle, high and university students who have tasked themselves with collecting books and computers from their schools, community libraries and Neighborhood. If you want to be an Ambassador, contact us at info@myafricangirls.com. Alexis, Caroline, Joshua, Jonathan have done a tremendous job leading the book drive project.
