Books For Africa

Many children in Africa do not have the opportunity to attend school. Most of the children who do go to school have never owned a book of their own. Often, classrooms share one textbook among 10-20 students. Some classrooms do not have any books at all.

Access to books can alter the course of a child’s life. Many people in the United States take these educational necessities for granted, but children in Africa cherish books.

Here is how a teacher in Namibia describes the students at her school:

“Though there are no chairs or tables in our library, and only a ragged carpet on a cement floor, the children line up outside, waiting anxiously for me to open every afternoon, excited to look through and read, yet again, the same book they read yesterday.

“The library has become a quiet haven for the children to come and spend their time. Within its walls, there is a safety for academic curiosity; there, the children can forget what awaits them outside. They spend long, lazy African hours sprawled out, flipping mesmerized through picture books, tracing words with their fingers, asking for definitions or explanations.

“The library has become a place that not only creates a love of reading, but offers and inspires an interest in English, the national language of this still newly independent nation, and an awareness of a world outside the school walls.”

Books For Africa is the world's largest shipper of donated text and library books to the African continent. Books For Africa has shipped over 21.5 million books to 45 African countries since 1988. These books are now on once-empty library shelves and in the hands of children who have never before held a book.

Books For Africa partners with nongovernmental organizations in Africa to ship sea containers of approximately 22,000 donated high-quality books to schools, libraries, orphanages, and adult literacy programs in 45 African countries. These books are sorted and shipped according to the book needs of the recipient, based on age-level and content. Recipient partners are schools, nonprofit groups, or nongovernmental institutions. Because Books For Africa provides donated books, we can send a book to Africa for less than 50 cents — a stunning value! This makes books affordable to many people in poorer, rural areas that are the most desperate for books.

Books For Africa strives to support a culture of literacy and provide the tools of empowerment to the next generation of parents, teachers, and leaders in Africa. There are over 400 million children living in Africa today. Without your help, many will never have access to books. With your support, we can bring the gift of learning to African children.

In the words of former U. N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan: “Books For Africa is a simple idea, but its impact is transformative. For us, literacy is quite simply the bridge from misery to hope.”