By Fatou Camara II
Books for Africa through its Million Books for The Gambia (MBG) program has donated 22,000 books to Armitage Senior Secondary School and a law library to the Ministry of Justice.
The Million Books for The Gambia is a program of Books for Africa, an organisation seeking to empower institutions and students across Africa by way of books. A massive over 800,000 books have been delivered to children and adult learners of The Gambia by MBG since its official inauguration in February 2012. Mrs Megan Meyer Wahl and Mr Kebba Badgie, former CEO of Bwiam Hospital founded MBG in 2008. The current officials of Million Books for The Gambia have been with the program since 2012.
On Monday, 22,000 books and stand lamps were handed over to officials of Armitage Senior Secondary School while the Ministry of Justice was given a law library, with the books and the law library arriving in the country in the same container. The law library was donated by the Thomas Reuters Corporation while the Luanne Nyberg Girls Empowerment Fund funded the books donated to Armitage High School in part.
The very ideas of books being mobilised in the United States and sent to The Gambia was conceived in 2010 during discussions between a medical group called Hand in Health, a Gambian based in US Lamin Lang Dibba and Books For Africa. The latter being the world’s largest shipper of educational books to Africa had worked with Health in Hand, Mr Kebba Badgie then CEO of Bwiam Hospital to ship medical books to Bwiam hospital, Patrick Plonski wrote in an OpEd on Huffington Post in 2012. But it was Megan Meyer of Hand in Health met Tom Gitaa, then chair of the BFA in 2010 and he put her in touch with Lamin (Lang) Dibba, a native of Gambia, Plonski who was familiar with the idea wrote further.
Samba Faal is a founding member of Million Books for The Gambia (MBG) and speaking on Monday at the presentation held at the Ports premises in Banjul, said: “Million Books for The Gambia is a program of Books of Africa and the target is to make sure that Gambia receives one million books from Books for Africa.
“One thing is certain though, we are reminded of the words of a renown thinker, he said ‘we expect to pass through this world but once’. Therefore any good that we can do let us not defer or neglect or we shall not for we shall not pass the world again. This is an opportunity of a life time.”
Also present at the event was Alieu Jallow the registrar at the Attorney General’s Chambers who said the books will complement what they already have in the library of the ministry of justice.
Mr Jallow stated: “Lawyers work with books those are our reference materials and so every serious Chambers really need a law library to be able to do your work efficiently and effectively and so it is no small gesture giving us books or a library for that matter that will be for the use of the ministry of justice.
“But you should also know that as a state law office, every other person who is interested in legal matters is very likely to have a relationship with the ministry of justice by contacting us for these books but it is only possible when we have a well equipped library so these books are going to complement what we already have.”
Abdoulie Fofana of Armitage High School said the books and lamps will help boost the morals of their students and ease their studies.
“Thanks to all those who contributed to make sure the books are around for us. This gives me joy because it is one of the first high schools in The Gambia to receive books that will boost their morals.
“We all know the nature of electricity in the provinces with NAWEC I’ll not comment. We are not very much privilege but with these lamps, any time of the night you wake up you can read , if you are willing to do so,” Fofana said.
The MBG program says it would also like to give readers the opportunity to donate to our cause through BFA. Donations can be made at http://www.booksforafrica.org
