Last September, my husband and I had the immense pleasure of visiting Mwika’s spanking brand new library. The Book Project had made some donations to the library, and I was thrilled to find the books we had stamped, ready on the shelves to be read.

Mwika is located on the slopes of the formidable Mt. Kilimanjaro in northern Tanzania. Of late, the village’s standard of living had been in decline. Consequently, Mr. Kimaro (retired IMF) , a native son of the village, and his wife Young (retired World Bank) decided to embark on an enterprise to establish a community library which they saw was clearly an essential element in Mwika’s development.

Support from home and abroad

The library came about as a result of the Kimaro’s inexhaustible persistence, through the Mwika Development Trust Fund, a grassroots NGO founded by the people of Mwika. Their efforts were combined with generous support from home and abroad. The local parish donated the building, a beautiful stone church built by the German Lutherans 100 years ago. Community carpenters fashioned sturdy shelves and furniture with a $5,000 donation from the Dar es Salam Diplomatic Spouses Group. Now came the task of filling the vacant shelves, a feat that could only be achieved by going abroad.

Collecting enough books for the new library was a Herculean task. The Kimaro’s first stop was Seattle, Washington where their daughter resides. They filled five shopping carts at Goodwill Industries and three bulging suitcases at a public library sale. After this shopping spree they had accumulated 1,500 books. But they still needed more books and also to find a way to get the books home with their scant $2,000 budget.

The Book Project gets involved

Somewhere in the back of Young’s mind emerged a vague memory of the Book Project. She contacted Josephine Barry, then president of the Book Project, who said they could help with selecting, packing and sending the books abroad. They helped with selecting more suitable material; some sets of encyclopedias and 1,000 books were meticulously culled from the packing room.

These books, together with their Seattle collection, were then packed into 48 boxes and sent on their way by ship to Tanzania at a discount rate arranged by the Book Project. Unfortunately, the books ended up smack dab on the opposite side of the continent. DHL had sent the boxes to Ghana instead, and to rectify their error, they air-shipped them to Tanzania. By the time the books arrived it had been seven months from Young’s first conversation with Josephine and about nine years since the start of their dream! On September 28, 2007 Mwika’s community library was officially opened by the Bishop of the Northern Diocese of the Lutheran Church of Tanzania.

The Church will now be in charge of maintaining the new library. They have hired a librarian and arranged for staffing by volunteers as well. The cataloging of the material is well underway and the facility is absolutely first class. Two volunteers from Seattle pitched in and set up a computerized library database. With the continued energy and commitment of the citizens of Mwika, the library is bound to grow and improve and play a pivotal part in village’s own development.

Ann Waters,

Packing room coordinator