The Book Project aims to send four large shipments each year. A large shipment is approximately 30,000+ books. The World Bank pays the shipping costs of the large shipments from our office to the port of entry. A distributor is needed to take responsibility for the shipment from arrival, through customs and delivery of books to the identified schools and institutions and to meet the associated costs.
Distributors are often reputable NGOs established in the destination country. They may also be individuals, and some of them may have connections with the World Bank. As volunteers, we especially like working with people we know, or can get to know who will tell us about the schools and libraries where the books are going and will share their motivation and commitment to putting books in the hands of children.
The distributors for our recent shipment to Tanzania were individuals who were former employees of the World Bank. On retirement, Young Kimaro and her husband Sadikiel had returned to his native Tanzania on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro, where they had built a library for the local village. The Book Project supplied a small shipment of books, and Mwika Community Library opened on September 2008. One of our previous volunteers was lucky enough to visit and reported back to Mosaic, and Young herself brought photos from the library. She left us a PowerPoint showing how the library was built and explained how the library had improved life in their community. With this real live contact, we felt very connected to this village.
Since then, the schools in Mwika and other villages close-by needed textbooks. Also, a new college campus had opened in the village and the library needed more books. So, Young contacted us again to see if a large shipment to that part of Tanzania was possible. We were all pleased to have the opportunity to give more support to these Bank family members and the growing need in the Moshi/Himo/Mwika area in Kilimanjaro. So, this shipment was a little special. Even though the books are donated, we do our best to match books to the requests we receive and make sure the selection of books is culturally appropriate and meets the needs on the ground.
Young and her husband planned to be in DC and would come to the Book Project to help. With their presence here for several weeks, they taught us so much more about how children in developing countries are educated. We learned the need to understand not just when children learned English, but when they were actually taught in English.
A large shipment is 552 boxes on 20 skids or palettes, so it usually takes between three and four months to pack a large shipment. The shipment to Tanzania took almost twice that time. Yes, sorting and packing were interrupted by the December holiday break, and the snowfalls of February, but we took a little more care than usual, because this time we knew what texts the children, teachers and library really needed, in villages we ‘knew’. It will take another six weeks before the container arrives in Dar Es Salaam and another two weeks for it to be trucked up country.
For all the time taken we pack because we know one book makes a difference, Thirty thousand books will make a real difference to the library and schools of this community.