Happy Tabaski

Bush taxi eventually loaded with ~40 rams

Tomorrow is the Muslim holiday of Tabaski. Rams are to Tabaski as turkeys are to Thanksgiving in America. Happy Tabaski season, friends.

Books for Abdoulaye

Front and center

While the US government spins around in circles over ridiculous arguments about money allotment, think about my student Abdoulaye. Abdoulaye is a 15-year-old 8th grader. He's a quiet kid, but every trimester since arriving in middle school, he has been the first in his class. He hopes to study abroad in Canada or America someday before coming back to Burkina Faso to be a teacher, or maybe an economist for the government. For now, he belongs to a poor family of subsistence farmers in my village, and he spent all of his summer vacation helping his family work in the fields. The entire family lives off of less than $20 a month. He would be the first person in his family to hold even a middle-school diploma. As it is, anytime he wants to know something, he has to ask a teacher or other adult, and is thus limited to what they know and what they take the time to tell him. My village has no library or other publicly available repository of information, and the nearest one is in Kaya, the regional capital, which he can get to only by a 20-mile bike ride on a terrible road.

I am raising money for a library at my school. If you think about all the necessary basic supplies at your local high school--pens, paper, books, a computer, a printer and photocopier--out of those things, all we have is...pens and paper. We already have a library room with bookshelves, but the only books in it are useless cobwebby out-of-date textbooks that the school didn't have any other place for. With this grant, we will go a long way toward having an adequate setup for a school that's beyond the 17th century.

Some things that grant money will go toward:
- 400 books for the library
- book label cards and library membership cards
- a solar panel and electric hookup
- a laptop computer
- a photocopier (can you imagine a school without a photocopier?? I can)
- a printer
- tables and chairs
- pedagogic materials (books or other supplies) for teachers
- a hand washing station outside the library to promote hygiene and book maintenance
- materials to paint a mural with a world map and other artwork on the outside walls

The school has already chosen a librarian and has set aside money for his training, which will be done through an NGO called FAVL (Friends of African Village Libraries), as well as his first year's salary. With the backing of the mayor's office, we hope to broaden the base of financial support for the library in the coming years to ensure its growth over time.

Books at the library will include textbooks, of which there is a serious insufficiency at the school, as well as picture books to encourage literacy in French, English, and local languages; African and other literature in French and local languages; dictionaries; reference books; and books with relevant career-related information on topics like agriculture, animal husbandry, and masonry. The library is primarily for the school, but it will be open to the entire community as well. We will seek input from students and interested community members before we go to purchase books. With the backing of the parents' association and the mayor's office, the collection will grow in the future to better meet the community's needs.

To do all these things, we need to raise $6,096, and that's where we need your support. We can't get started until we raise that entire sum, and if we don't, you'll get all your money back. Once we do get it, expenses are very closely monitored, so you know it's all being used exactly as it should be. Donations are 100% tax-deductible and come with a guarantee of warm fuzzy feelings from having measurably improved someone's life.

Think about what a difference this will make in the lives of Abdoulaye and his 700+ classmates. Not only will his school function more smoothly, but he will also suddenly have access to a huge range of information that he could never dream of now. For the first time, he will have books available to him that he can read out of sheer personal interest. If he wants to improve his English, he'll be able to look up words in a French-English dictionary, which he couldn't buy in village even if he had the money for it. Plus, he'll have a lighted space to study in the evenings, whereas many students are currently forced to do homework by firelight after dark since the village has no electricity.

In America, we can argue about spending money on the military, or on a new car or a new pair of designer shoes. On the other hand, is there any doubting the value of a library that will serve the future of over 700 underprivileged students? It's hard to think of spending more meaningful than that.

UPDATE: fundraising goals met. Thank you everyone!!!