The Library Project

I had been looking for a way to return to Ethiopia in a useful way. I had gone for two weeks during the summer of 2007 with a group called Ethiopia Reads, and marveled then at the changes since the civil war had come to an end and the new government had settled in. Lots of economic development, more emphasis on ethnic identity, t-shirts depicting Haile Selassie, which you would never have seen during the time of the Dergue.

A friend who knew of my interest introduced me to her friend, coincidentally an alumnus of the school where I worked, who was involved in setting up a new kind of high school in Addis Ababa. A group of Ethiopian Americans had approached the Northwest School and asked them to join in a partnership in making their dream a reality. ILAE opened its doors in 2013 with about 25 ninth grade students, hand-picked for their high academic performance and enthusiasm for learning. Those ninth graders are now rising seniors, the class of 2017, first graduating class of ILAE. They have since been joined by three other cohorts, and the school year will open in the fall with full enrollment in four grades.

I knew I wanted to be a part of this endeavor, but I needed to wait a year for the time to be right. I have been planning to work the summer program at ILAE for at least a year and a half. I'm so excited it's finally happening.

English is the medium of instruction in Ethiopian high schools, but my experience in 2007, and previously, had shown me that there was a serious lack of materials, textbook and literature, in English, in the schools. It seemed like a good idea to me to collect materials for a library-- not just cast-off old encyclopedias from grandma's attic, but a highly-curated collection, targeted at this group of students.

In December I started trolling the plentiful thrift stores in the Seattle area for books that I thought would be suitable. Some classics, a lot of multicultural coming of age stories, everything by African authors I could find, graphic novels, history, and educational materials to support the STEM curriculum. I identified a number of titles for which I was able to collect class sets-- and I never paid much more than $2 for anything. Being a librarian, I created a catalog of all titles and put card pockets in them for simple circulation.
                                                                                             






Now, well over 400 titles later, I am, with the help of the students and others who are traveling from Seattle to Ethiopia, and with generous donations from friends for the overweight luggage charges we will have, delivering a high quality print library to go with electronic resources that the school has been accumulating. (And which are still usable when the electricity goes out.)

I truly can't wait to get this little gem of a library up and running, with students trained to manage circulation. And now that I am hooked on Goodwill book shopping, I'm going to have to figure out how to keep the pipeline running!