About African Book Box
“It is my wish that the voice of the storyteller may never die in Africa, that all the children of the world may experience the joy of books.”
— Nelson Mandela
African books for African children
Portable libraries of African literature and curriculum books in Book Boxes are distributed to local schools in Kenya and Tanzania.
Since 2007 our expanded objective is to also contribute to the well-being of African children and their caregivers. This is due to the devastating effects of the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
We presently collaborate with:
Mufindi Orphans Canada www.mufindiorphans.ca
Primary Schools for Africa www.primaryschoolsforafrica.com
Foxes Community and Wildlife Conservation Trust (Foxes NGO) www.wildorphans.org
Reaching Out with Compassion in Kibera http://rockkenya.org
Majengo Children’s Home https://majengo.org
Foundation for African Medicine and Education https://fameafrica.org
Mufindin Ystävät https://www.mufindinystavat.net
Tunapanda Institute https://tunapanda.org
All members of the board are volunteers. Our only "non-project" expenses are bookkeeping and banking. All other monies are spent on-the-ground on our African projects.
Past
In 1990 Anne Pearson had an opportunity to live and teach in Kenya. A desperate need for books was discovered. Collaborative projects were developed with Kenyan and Canadian teachers. With donations from Canadians an initial 28 schools were supplied with book boxes containing at least 75 African storybooks.
African books were purchased from publishers in Kenya and Tanzania, placed in strong metal boxes built by local craftsmen and distributed one or two book boxes per school.
With the devastating impact of HIV/AIDS, the Society’s mandate expanded in 2007 to provide a diversity of educational and health needs primarily in Mufindi District in south west Tanzania. Our expanded projects included building 4 libraries, assisting in the development of a children’s village for up to 80 orphans and vulnerable children and providing ongoing operating costs, building 5 classrooms for rural schools, providing a nutritional meal in a mug for all students at Igoda village school, training for a grass roots medical program through home based care, providing diagnosis and treatment for HIV/AIDS, building Igoda’s large community hall, funding educational seminars related to health and job opportunities, implementing income generating projects including basket and mat weaving, sewing, market gardening, raising chickens.
Present
Education remains a top priority as we continue to purchase and deliver culturally relevant storybooks and curriculum books, expand the mobile library project, sponsor scholarship students, work with partner organizations in Kibera to help with post-secondary education, sponsor the Maasai Girls Project in Karatu, fund a Tanzanian artist to teach art at village schools and complete 2 classrooms at Mwefu Primary.
Health and Community Outreach activities include funding for a Home Based Care Program serving 16 villages, supporting Mufundin Ystavat with ongoing costs for medical emergencies in Mufindi, and continued support for FAME hospital.
Vocational Training activities include the continued operation of Flame Tree Vocational Training School in Karatu which offers courses that are designed to make graduates of the programs employable. Courses that are currently being offered are Electrical, Plumbing, Tailoring, Sewing, Computer skills, Life skills, Technical drawing, Engineering, Science and Communication Skills. In addition, FTVTC offers entrepreneurship training seminars to villagers, especially to women’s groups.
Luhunga’s Girls’ Dormitory for 64 village girls was completed in January 2017.
Future
After 33 years the essence of the African Children’s Book Box Society continues to be advancing literacy in East Africa by providing portable libraries in the form of book boxes. Our future collaborations will support initiatives focused in this direction. Although ABB’s support has been mainly focused in Tanzania for the past 15 years, our support for education and health initiatives has returned to Kenya with the beginning of new partnerships while also maintaining historical commitments.
