During my October visit to Lesotho, I had the honor of attending the grand opening of the Sepabala Community Library!  The drive up to the village was long and reasonably hair raising, bottoming out our rental car many times on the steep, rough and often washed out gravel road to Sepabala.  I traveled with ALP Treasurer Carolyn Gannon, our Lesotho Peace Corps Field Coordinators Becky Banton and Anne Marie Jackson and PCV Gayle Poplau who helped the village get the library organized.  

We arrived at 9 am and in traditional African fashion, the festivities did not start until several hours after the advertised time.  We spent the time getting to know the young, motivated librarian, admiring the library and its collection and chatting with the local dignitaries and children as they arrived.  The area villages are enormously proud of their new library.  Church was cancelled for the day in favor of an opening celebration for the library.  

The library is housed in a new building built especially for the library and with an adjacent community room.  It is by far the nicest building we saw in the entire area.  The Queen of Lesotho's Lady in Waiting is from this village and she is the one that initiated the idea of a library.  She and her husband (delightful people) were on hand to celebrate.  Also attending were the school's headmistress, the District Administrator (think Governor of the area), the local Member of Parliament (think Senator) and the country's head of Tourism (I don't know what to think!).  All gave speeches (in Sesotho) followed by singing prayers.

The librarian gave separate orientations in the library to the students and adults.  This was her first time to give a "speech" to anyone and she was very nervous, but so very excited and proud.  I hope you will get a small sense of how very fun and exciting this day was for everyone.  I took a bunch of photos and am sending you some of my favorites. It may take a couple of emails:)   I talked about Georgia Elementary and Middle School's contribution to the library during my speech in the church.  I'm not entirely sure what everyone else talked about, but I do know several mentioned what a proud day it was for village and how they must take very good care of this precious new resource.  Georgia Elementary & Middle School's African library partner, Sebapala Community, is very proud of their library and grateful to Georgia Elementary & Middle School for making it possible. 

The African Library Project thanks you for all of your excellent work promoting literacy in Africa. With 1,745 books sent to two libraries already, you and Georgia Elementary & Middle School should be very proud of all you've accomplished. We are!  We've attached an electronic thank you from us celebrating your accomplishment and naming you a 2008 Global Literacy Champion!  We hope that you will post this on your website, publish it in an e-newsletter or print it and hang it where all those who contributed might share in the pride of this accomplishment.  We've sent it to you in Powerpoint so that you can customize it by popping in photos of your book drive or from your library project if you have received any. Congratulations and thank you!

What's better than being a Global Literacy Champion?

Chocolate? No....

Starting another library? Duh!!

Book drives are our blood.  Every book drive means a new library is born.  Are you able to sponsor another book drive either this spring or next fall?  If so, here are our deadlines for this spring. Any of our partners in Africa would be overjoyed to get your books. Please let us know!

Shipping deadline       Type of library             Type of books needed            Country

4/15/09                       Primary school             Preschool - 4th grade books     Botswana                    

6/1/09                        Primary school            Preschool -  4th grade books    Malawi                

6/15/09                       Secondary school        4th-8th grade books                 Malawi                      

If you are unable to do another book drive, please consider spreading the word about the African Library

Congratulations on being named a Global Literacy Champion!  We appreciate your support, and are proud to have you as our partner.

Warmly,

Chris

Chris Bradshaw
African Library Project
www.africanlibraryproject.org