Books for Africa

The Leap School has a number of different ventures attached to it, people doing volunteer work in a variety of capacities.  One of these is Books for Africa.


Chris is in charge of this venture.  You really need to meet Chris.  I met him yesterday when he gave us a brief tour of the "book store."  Just in the few minutes that I spent with him, his enthusiasm is infectious, and he never stops smiling. This man is SOOO excited about his books.

From what I have learned here in South Africa, people, especially children, do not read much.  Either there are not books available or it is a cultural aspect, but books just do not make it into the hands of children.  Chris has his heart set on changing that.

I am not sure how this project got started, but from what I gather, Rotary International ships boxes of donated books to Chris.  Hundreds of boxes of books.  Chris receives these books, sorts them out, catorgizes them, then separates them between the three shipping containers that constitute his "Book Store."

This is Katie, Chris, and Subina in one of the shipping containers, filled with old donated books.

Once Chris has sorted the  books, he contacts local primary schools and people come and take the books to fill up school libraries.  He keeps track of which schools take how many boxes of books, who has "completed" libraries, and who is struggling to get things going.  He told us the story of one school libarian that is filling their container library by hauling boxes of books in his little Chico car (in the States, this is a tiny VW Golf model), trip after trip after trip.  Really, how many boxes of books can one cram into a Chico?  (lol)

Tomorrow, one of the schools is celebrating the opening of their new library and he and Subina are going to attend.  I might go along, just to get photos.

Chris wanted me to mention that they have plenty of adult books, but what they REALLY need is picture books for the smaller children, or for people trying to learn English.  Many tutors use these Easy Reader books to teach English, but these sorts of books rarely make it to his store.


These are two of the shipping containers that have been converted to the Book Store.  One of the containers has been designated to be moved to Kaklkfontein as soon as someone can figure out costs and where to put the container.  Chris has books in all three of the containers, but it should be quick work to empty one of them out (using all 16 of us Fellows) should we get it arranged to be moved.

In the meantime, I will look for funding to help with shipping costs to bring more books here, especially those all important ones for the younger children.