SLA Illinois Chapter Connecting People and Information

By Ann Sweeney and Nancy Minter*

Special Librarian Jane Kinney Meyers in Zambia.

Special Librarian Jane Kinney Meyers sees it clearly: a network of small, open-access libraries across sub-Saharan Africa providing basic education and literacy skills to as many of the 43 million orphaned and street children as possible. And so her Lubuto Library Project  was incorporated as a non-profit in January 2005 (www.lubuto.org). The first Lubuto Library is slated for completion in November 2006 in Lusaka, Zambia, with two more to follow shortly.

Land of Orphans

Living and working in Zambia and Malawi for some seven years, Jane witnessed the dire circumstances of these kids first-hand. In Zambia, she became increasingly involved with services to street children offered by the Fountain of Hope, a drop-in shelter in Lusaka. She established a reading program, served on the Board, raised funds, and created a library for the children—among her many contributions to the center. But that was not enough.

Most of the over 40 million African orphans are collateral victims of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, and at least 11 million of them have seen both parents die of AIDS. In ten sub-Saharan African countries, more than one in five 14-year-olds are parentless. According to U.S. government and UN estimates, this number will continue to grow due to the high proportion of adults there already living with HIV/AIDS and the difficulties in expanding access to life-prolonging antiretroviral treatment.

While international relief and development agencies and national governments strive diligently to meet the basic needs of food, medical care, and clothing, most of these children cannot attend school and face a lifetime of poverty and despair engendered by a lack of education.

A Place of Their Own

Architect’s model of a Lubuto Library in the style of traditional Zambian homesteads. Entry is through the center structure with the activities building to the right and library to the left.

A former World Bank and United States Agency for International Development librarian, Meyers aims to build and staff libraries complete with excellent book collections carefully compiled utilizing the professional expertise and volunteerism of librarians, writers, booksellers, and U.S. schoolchildren. Lubuto Libraries will afford a safe gathering place and an opportunity for an informal education for orphans, street children, and other vulnerable children.

The libraries will hold events with traditional storytellers, giving the children the opportunity to transcribe and help preserve a vanishing oral culture, as well as create their own books. Beyond this, while participating in the Lubuto effort, American students will learn of the plight of their African peers who deal with HIV/AIDS on a personal, daily basis. To this latter end, Lubuto produced a film, Kids Just Like You, which is narrated by Julian Bond and made its debut in May 2006.

'Enlightenment, Knowledge, Light'

The Lubuto Project plans to ship the first collection of 5,000 donated books to fill the shelves of its Lusaka library before the end of the year.  As of the end of July, appeals had raised three quarters of the funds required for construction, with a need for some $15,000 remaining.

Every penny donated to the project goes for this purpose, and the project is appealing to you, as people who understand the value of books and reading, to find a way to reach out now to the children in Zambia who need books to nurture their imaginations and hope. Please visit the Lubuto Library Project website to contribute.

“Lubuto," in the language of the Bemba people of Zambia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, means "enlightenment, knowledge, and light."

Construction of first Library, Lusaka, Zambia, to be completed in November 2006.

Photos courtesy of Lubuto Library Project. 

* Ann Sweeney is International Relations Section Chair of the Social Science Division of Special Libraries Association and Webmaster, Librarian and Information Officer for the European Union's European Commission Delegation. She can be reached at ann.sweeney@ec.europa.eu.

 Nancy Minter is Public Relations Chair of the Social Science Division as well as Library Director at the Urban Institute in Washington, D.C. Contact her at nminter@ui.urban.org.