Friends of Se7en, It is Time to Build a Library…

Let’s begin… So many of you have written in because you want to be part of our library project… And I finally have all the details the you need…

Let’s Meet the Children

Last year we helped a school in Manenberg, an area close to our home and renowned world-wide for poverty and gangsterism. The desperate need in this area, is probably too much for most of us to understand. This is an area were because of the poverty school fees are exempt, that just means that there is no financial help for this school and they rely on any outside projects… a community project in an area where parents are just not capable of helping their children financially or academically in any way. Most of us living close to Manenberg try not to come into contact with an area that is notorious for crime, gangsterism, substance abuse (alcohol and tic) and domestic violence.

Well this year we are heading back in there, clearly our work is not done in Manenberg. We are supporting another primary school in the area… This school moved into new premises in November last year and they have a library full of shelves just waiting to be filled with books.

While all the students do learn English, many of the learners have Afrikaans as their first language. English books are very welcome, so are books in Afrikaans. In fact they have very few books in Afrikaans and they are crying out for more. Any books will be great, story books, picture books, craft books, cook books, reference books… really any books. We absolutely love our blog community for working on this project together, and the fact that folk all over the world can easily help us create a library… online shopping for the win. It doesn’t matter where in the world you are, it is easy to join in and help. Some folk traveled more than half way round the world to deliver their books last year, gotta love it!!!

So How Can You Help?

Step 1: Select a Book or Books

1. You can search through your books for gently used books that your children have outgrown or no longer love.
2. You can buy a book or two with your children and package them up.
3. You can shop at Amazon and ship directly.
4. And you can shop on-line, locally at Loot, and ship directly as well.

If you are shopping overseas and would like to buy local language books then click on the South African vendor to find books and they will deliver locally for you.

Step 2: Contact us.

Leave a comment and tell us that you intend to help or contact us. I will reply to you all as soon as I can with the shipping details, with the address to send the books you have chosen. There is a human person behind each and every email (that would be me) and they take time… please be patient the address will get to you.

Step 3: Let us Know All About the Books You Chose

We would love if you could photograph the books you are sending, or a list of the books that you ordered. If you have a blog and write about it then let us know and we will have a Progress Post each week. I will pop the photo’s you send into the blog post and if you do have a blog there will be a chance for you to link up as well…

We are so excited about this project and we really hope that our readers seize the day and join us… it doesn’t have to be huge… if even one percent of our readers pop one book into an envelope and post it off… we will have a library. So here’s to hoping that we hear from you all really soon… leave a comment saying you would like to join us, contact us… Please share this post, with your friends and family, with your play-dates, with your class. Whatever you need to do… we would so love to hear from you!!!

Libraries Our Readers Have Created in the Past

Living on the Southern tip of Africa, we are in a part of the world where this isn’t actually the standard protocol and many many children have no access to books, let alone the luxury of books in their own language or books about their own culture, not for school, not for fun and certainly not at bedtime. We can change that, book by book… I firmly believe that wherever you are, and whatever situation you are in, you can always escape into a book… but that is only if you have an opportunity to connect with a book. The project that we choose will have children that need to be able to escape the world around them, more than most of us.

• A rural village school in Lesotho.
• A Township School in Stanford.
• And a Community library in Eerste River.
• A Primary School Library in Manenburg.

We would like to thank Biblionef South Africa, for helping us to find a community in our area that needs a library, over the years they have provided us with unprecedented support in helping us to pursue our dream to provide books for children just like ours, who otherwise wouldn’t have access to books.

Disclosure: The Amazon and Loot links are affiliate links and our blog will earn a very small percentage of the book sales made there, we pledge to put any of our earnings from books for the school directly back into buying more books for them… this is their project and we don’t in any way want to gain financially from it.