My Nonprofit Reviews

We can never thank African Library Project enough. ALP has been an oasis of library resource in our primary, secondary and community libraries in Malawi through its yearly donations. The Ministry of Education does not have school libraries as one of its core responsibilities such that individual schools have to make their individual efforts to have a functional school library. This means most of the libraries in Malawi are run by non professional personnel. Yet the Malawi Library Association has been running a certificate course in Library and Information Science since the 1976. In addition Mzuzu University is producing librarians at bachelors and masters level. These end up doing teaching jobs because the Ministry has no policy to employ them.

ALP Partners in Malawi are complimenting governments efforts by doing the following: distribute and vet application forms, submit applications to ALP on behalf of applicants, track shipped container, and arrange for offloading, ensure that books reach beneficiaries, assess performance of libraries and above all train teacher librarians. Through these short course training teacher librarians are equipped with basic skills in librarianship. This is a huge boost to education in Malawi.

The ALP do not only donate libraries to schools in Malawi they also hold biannual summits in various African countries where partners from across the world meet and share their rich experiences. This accords partners a platform to learn, be motivated, get inspired, inspire others and belong to this warm big family of people that have this burning desire to do more to the information hungry people in their respective countries.

Chancellor College Library we will continue to work with ALP until each and very school in Malawi has a functional library. In addition we will also work to influence government to consider a change in policy with regard to school libraries.

On a personal level I feel deeply humbled and lucky to be associated with ALP.