Gift of Books
During a visit to Nigeria in 1992, Victor Mbaba visited several schools. To his dismay, he found teachers providing classroom instruction without any resource materials, including textbooks. Upon his return to the United States, he found out that school districts were discarding discontinued textbooks. Thinking of the great need in Africa, Mbaba organized the Gift of Books Project to distribute books to areas in need.
The Gift of Books Project involves collecting, sorting, and shipping surplus books and educational supplies for library and learning resource centers in the most disadvantaged communities in Africa.
Our goal is to end the book famine in Africa. Africa’s Children’s Fund remains one of the largest shippers of donated text and library books to the African continent. Since 1993, in collaboration with Books For Africa, this Project has shipped 1.8 million books to help build libraries in schools in Liberia, Ghana, South Africa, Sierra Leone, Cameroon, Nigeria, Grenada, and Jamaica.
We accept book donations at the Africa’s Children’s Fund Offices, Monday through Friday during the hours of 10am to 4pm. We accept donations of many types of books, however, the types of books most needed are:
- Fiction books
- Children’s library books (picture books and chapter books)
- English / Grammar
- Science texts (K-University)
- Math texts (K-University)
- Dictionaries (and picture dictionaries)
- Medical texts
- Vocational books (plumbing, carpentry, etc.)
- Encyclopedias newer than 1990
All donated books must be in excellent condition. Please do not donate books that have:
We accept book donations at the Africa’s Children’s Fund Offices, Monday through Friday during the hours of 10am to 4pm. We accept donations of many types of books, however, the types of books most needed are:
- Broken bindings
- Torn or missing pages
- Yellowed pages
- Excessive underlining or highlighting
Due to the nature of our work, we cannot accept:
- Outdated (before 1990) or incomplete encyclopedia sets
- Religious/Evangelical Books
- Magazines
- Workbooks / Prepbooks