My name is Delaney and I am starting this blog on behalf of the Africa Book Project – a small Calgary-based charity that provides books to schools and libraries in Africa, which I recently became involved.
Here’s the why and how:
When I was younger, I dreamed of doing something someday that would change the world.
Now that I’m older, I realize that changing the world is kind of a big undertaking. When the realities of everyday life set in – jobs, mortgages, car repairs, concern over calorie intake, etc. – I don’t have much time left over to think about saving the world, much less anything else.
And when I do have some free time, I don’t even know where, or how, to start.
Until recently, when I met with Barb Briggs, president of the Africa Book Project (ABP) — a small Calgary-based charity that provides books to schools and libraries in Africa – and she explained to me a little bit about why she does the work she does.
Barb is realistic about the impacts of aid and development. In fact, she acknowledges that shipping books overseas brings up several questionable issues, including the environmental concerns involved with sending books by boat; the imposition of western culture and values on African cultures; the appropriateness and usefulness of the materials; the potential creation of dependency; the possibility of putting a local book owner out of business due to flooding of the market with free books, and so forth.
But despite these issues, she continues her work with the project because she believes that change can happen in small steps, and it starts with becoming aware of what’s going on around you — locally and internationally. To date, the ABP has sent nearly 100,000 books to Africa, to remote areas where schools have little funding, and few resources, but Barb told me the project is about doing more than just shipping books – it’s about getting people educated and talking about related
And so we came up with the idea for this blog, based on the idea that you can have an impact by just doing small things and being aware of what’s going on in the world. So check back here for upcoming events, and other news, issues and conversation related to the project.
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