Books for Tanzania

The "Books for the World Project" Ad Hoc committee in Rotary District 5100 was started by Dr. Joyce and her husband Dr. Ray Lockard about 11 years ago. Lee Thompson (RC Hillsboro) and Bob Aguirre (RC Portland Westside) joined the committee thereafter. "Ad Hoc" is a Latin phrase meaning "For a specific or particular purpose or impromptu." The mission of this committee is specifically to collect used (or new) text and reference books, raise funds for shipping and related expenditures and send books to third world countries.

Book Recipients

The Rotary "˜Books for the World' project has sent over 1,200,000 lb of used textbooks collected in the Portland area to Rotary club partners in seven countries, where the books were distributed to 16 universities and hundreds of schools. The governments of many developing countries cannot afford to supply their schools and colleges with all of the books that are needed. They want the used textbooks that we Americans discard when a new edition has been bought to replace textbooks that have been used for multiple years.

Poor countries cannot afford to educate all of their children, even at the elementary school level, and the meager funds that are available go first to pay teachers rather than to buy books. In the poorest countries there may be as many as a hundred or more students in one class, and it is common for 10-20 students to share a single textbook. And the poorest of countries are likely to have high rates of population growth, so their governments struggle to provide even basic education for an ever-expanding population. It is a fortunate country, indeed, that can educate a significant proportion of its youth through primary school.

At the university level, many students cannot afford to buy textbooks and they rely heavily on often- inadequate university libraries and the lectures of their professors for course content. And many children and young adults, including those in countries where English is taught as a second language, want to learn English to improve their education and help their families break a vicious cycle of poverty, but they need books in English with which to practice reading. The books that we send to poor countries bring positive changes, hope and encouragement to those who use them. English books are particularly preferred.

Donors and Volunteers

The project depends greatly on both Rotary and non-Rotary partners for donating, collecting, storing and packing the books that it sends.  There would be no book project without those donors and volunteers. Money is needed for the local costs of packing materials, warehouse storage and loading charges, trucking and shipping, etc. The most efficient way to send huge quantities of books to recipients is by packing them into 40 ft shipping containers. Packing of each shipment takes a huge amount of effort, literally hundreds of volunteer hours. Some of the ocean freight charges for the book project have been paid by donations of generous individuals and some by Rotary matching grants to which multiple Rotary clubs donated funds that were then matched by our Rotary District and the Rotary International Foundation. Getting books is relatively easy; it is finding shipping that limits how many books we can send to book-hungry schools and colleges in developing countries.