Christmas appeal provides 67000 books

Book Aid International has a simple, but powerful message: literacy matters, in ways large and small. Books are necessary for the quality of lives, for education, for economic development. And readers can be generous, when they rally around a good cause.

Book Aid International is a small London based charity with a long reach. The organization operates in 18 sub-Saharan African countries as will as Palestine, and provides over half a million books and journals each to libraries, hospitals, refugee camps and schools. While some big name writers , including J.K. Rowling and Alexander McCall Smith provided support and the benefit of their celebrity status, the ordinary readers who opened their wallets last year , including the 2500 who responded to a series of articles in The Observer were the silent armies of this great campaign. Among the partners last year was the Kenyan National Library Service , which helped Book Aid celebrate its 25 millionth book donation. That's 25 million books, folks. And in Kenya, many of the books were delivered by camel. to rural areas plagued by an illiteracy rate of 85%.

This Christmas, think of Book Aid International. And think of the power of inspired readers: to educate, to liberate, to change the world for the better, book by book.