Children benefit from Book Donations

An incredible 300,000 books have been donated to the children of Sierra Leone after an appeal for donations by ALCS Board Member, novelist and human rights activist Joan Smith in The Times 15 months ago.

The campaign’s initial goal was to get 50,000 books shipped, but the public response was overwhelming.

The civil war in Sierra Leone, in which schools and libraries were destroyed after being deliberately targeted, ended in 2002. Adult literacy rates have since fallen dramatically, and are now less than forty percent in the country of 5.8 million.

Individuals and schools in the UK since the appeal have been involved in getting books shipped over. Bloomsbury donated hundreds of Harry Potter books to the cause. So far seventy schools have either received books from the appeal or are about to receive them. If you would like to collect books for Sierra Leone or raise shipping funds for the cause you can visit www.codep.co.uk for details on how to get involved.

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