Saturday Spot: Our Readers Have Built a Library for Lesotho… Book by Book…

We are about to begin a new school year and we couldn’t help thinking about our adopted school in Lesotho at the same time.

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This time last year our family was getting ready for our first trip to Lesotho… I know it feels like last week… but really we started to plan and prepare in August last year…

It was a very different world to the one that my children were used to… and we loved it!!!

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We knew we were headed into a rural part of Lesotho and that we would be staying in a village with a small school that could do with some resources. My kids brainstormed around the dinner table one day and decided it would be wonderful if we could take each child in the school a pack of crayons… And we asked our blog readers for help… We had no idea that we would have such an incredible response and that our readers would send us a trailer of school materials for the kids in Lesotho…

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Also, we didn’t realise that our idea of school in rural Lesotho with a few school resources was actually almost no school resources… A concrete floor in a place where it snows for a large portion of the year and no pencils, or notebooks let alone the luxury of books to read…

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But we made friends for life with lots of lovely school kids all able to read and eager to learn and we knew we had to do more…

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In February this year, on International Book Giving Day we settled on a project to bring a library to the school in Lesotho. We asked our readers to send a book or two to Lesotho and so build up a library for the kids there. Just one book at a time. Once we got over the initial problems of discovering that it was impossible to ship anything into the heart of Lesotho and we had figured out a way to post our books to a nearby town in South Africa and then on into Lesotho it was literally a free for all… I had no idea how brilliant the response would be, literally hundreds of books flowed across the world from every corner of the globe: Alaska, China, India, Australia, the USA, the UK… and of course South Africa. Where we had hoped to surprise them with a couple of books we literally did send them a library. The response was phenomenal… these are some photographs of books set off to Lesotho for our readers… and the books just kept on piling up!!!

Books for the Lesotho Library

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Finally after all this time we have photographs to show you of the library our blog readers built for the little school in Lesotho…

Piles of books…

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Eager Readers…
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And shelves being built…
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Quite incredible really that our readers have built a library for a school in Lesotho… Book by Book!!! Thank you all for helping and sending books… really you have opened up the world for those children…

When we wrote about our village school in Lesotho last year we mentioned that it would be nearly impossible for a few of the children there to pay their school fees and that school for most of them were simply out of reach. Most of the children in this school are orphans, as a result of the HIV/Aids pandemic, they rely on a school feeding scheme that provides them with a meal once a day on weekdays for their survival. A number of our readers wanted to know more about sponsoring a child in Lesotho, perhaps building a relationship with a child and exchanging letters or even a once off donation. This week I will be gathering all the information you will need into one place and if you would like to help a Lesotho child with school fees then please feel free to leave a comment or contact us and I will get back to you next weekend.

Meanwhile thank-you for listening and most of all thank-you to all our blog-readers for helping to build a library book by book. If you would still like to send a book or if you have an item or two of new or hardly worn clothing, remember that Lesotho is on top of a mountain range and a very cold place to live… then please feel free to leave a comment or contact us and we will make sure that you can make a difference.

35 Replies to “Saturday Spot: Our Readers Have Built a Library for Lesotho… Book by Book…”

  1. Oh hooray!!!! You know I have been waiting! I see some of our books in there. How exciting! I can’t wait to get more info on sponsoring! 🙂

  2. Tears are folling down my cheeks. The photos of the children with the books are so wonderful. And how tremendous that we were all able to make a small but meaningful difference. Thank you Se7en for having the vision and being determined to find a way for it to work.

  3. Hay Christa, It is finally happening, I am getting it worked out for you!!! Thank you for your patience… you definitely are top of my email list later this week!!! Have a good week!!!

  4. Hay Zoe, Isn’t amazing!!! I am so thrilled that it worked out… there was a time when I thought it wouldn’t… what with shipping to the “depths” of Africa and all that!!! But it worked and they have a heap of books!!! I have to say I am quite inspired if our blog readers can build a library I am sure there are other projects we can do as well… Fun times!!! Hope you have a fabulous week!!!

  5. Isn’t it great Aunty Muffin!!! Lots of little efforts make a huge difference!!! Hope you have a great week!!!

  6. what an amazingly special project you started! the difference one blogger and many blog readers can make to the lives of these kids is incredible. so inspiring se7en +1. biggest blessings to you all

  7. This is fantastic, I am so proud to be part of it. We looked at this post as a family and the Candy kids were excited to see some of their old favourites in the photos, know that the books have found a good home and see how happy it make these Lesotho children:)

    Amazing work!

  8. Hay Kathryn, Thank you so much for stopping and commenting!!! We loved every second of this project and look forward to many more like it… the blessing was indeed ours as we were able to connect our readers with these kids from Lesotho, who really live a world away from us!!! Hope you have a great week!!!

  9. Isn’t it amazing, Annabel Candy, that our readers from all over the world could be part of this project!!! So simple and yet so far reaching. Imagine that these favourites of our kids become favourites of children in far off Lesotho and a connection is made!!! We really enjoyed putting this project together and I hope my kids dream up more new and fantastic projects over the dinner table!!! Thank you all for taking part, thrilled that you and your kids could be part of it too!!! Hope you have a fabulous week!!!

  10. We had some money put aside to send some books over then we got completely insane busy (flew interstate for three months with an open heart surgery and several other big medical procedures for our littlest bub) and the other week I realised that the money we had set aside is still sitting there. I was about to contact you about sending some books! Let me know the details when you can 🙂

  11. Jess, I am so sorry to hear about your little one, and so astonished you would even think of the Lesotho library considering. I will get back to you later tonight with the book details!!! Lots of love and take special care.

  12. Hi AMy, thanks so much for stopping by!!! We really enjoyed this project so much… what a privilege it has been to help folks get their books to these guys – really it has been fantastic!!! Hope you have a great day!!!

  13. Christa your email is on the way… just establishing “coms” between Lesotho and here… everything takes a little longer than you ever think it will!!! Have a good week, know that I have not forgotten you!!!

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