How does Book Aid International work?
Every year we send over half a million books to sub-Saharan Africa.
We send the books to libraries, schools, universities, refugee camps and hospitals and many other places. As well as fiction books, we send all kinds of books on subjects like farming, basic healthcare, joinery and plumbing, medical books, accountancy books, books on human rights and reference books like atlases and encyclopedias. We send the books that people really need and want to read which means that every one of our books is read over and over again. We estimate that each book we send is read by at least 5 people so 2.5 million people will read a book sent by Book Aid International this year.
Books
We receive all of our books now direct from UK publishers and other companies. The books are new and up to date which means that we can be sure that what we are sending is of the highest quality.
In our warehouse we have trained librarians who sort through the books as they arrive. We only send books that are relevant and useful so that money is not wasted on sending books that aren’t ever used. We work very closely with partners like national library services and universities who tell us what kind of books that they would like us to send and how many. Certain books are more in demand than others – like children’s books or atlases – and sometimes we don’t have enough of them but we try to make sure that we match this list wherever we can.
We also use funding to buy some books that publishers can’t donate – for example specialist books on agriculture or books in African languages. As well as this we provide funding to partners to buy books that are published in their own countries.
Where do we work?
We work in:
Cameroon, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Namibia, Somaliland & Puntland, Southern Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe. We also have a limited programme in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and a Tsunami reconstruction project in Sri Lanka.
For more detail on where we work click here
