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Books Abroad

Raymond Edwards

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Books Abroad

Books Abroad promotes literacy, education and understanding, which provides the means of a sustainable escape route from the plight of poverty. We recycle used books by sending them to schools and other institutions in developing countries. We should aspire to meet the worldwide demand for recycled books while maintaining a quality level of service.

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Who Are We

Books Abroad was founded in 1982 in Huntly Aberdeenshire and today receives donations of used books from schools, colleges, universities, publishers and other organisations throughout Scotland and parts of England. We are a charity registered in Scotland SCO11359

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What We Do

We send carefully selected book parcels each weighing about 8.5 kilos (about 40 Books) to educational establishments overseas. Wrapped in clear polythene to help speed its passage through customs.In addition we undertake special projects despatching large quantities of used books to establish or restock a library.

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Books Despatched

Total despatches in 2010 amounted to 25,768 kilos about 130,000 books.Worldwide to 143 client organisations in 27 different countries.We place a strong emphasis on local strategic partners to enable us to achieve our objectives e.g. Rotary Clubs of Bhuj and Ghandidiam and the Red Cross.

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Mission to Mombasa

From our stock in Rhynie, we picked and packed on 18 pallets about 8 tonnes of used books. We shipped these in a 20ft container to Chandi Parivar Charitable Trust in Mombasa who we had established as our local partner and they took delivery on our behalf. Our role was to supervise the distribution and setting up of the libraries in the schools.

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Likoni School for the Blind

The school caters for 130 children blind or visually impaired some of whom are also mentally and physically impaired. The school provides accommodation and meals for all of its students and staff. The school previously had no library previously and we also donated musical instruments, toys, clothes, bedding and mosquito nets.

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Amurt Likoni Primary School

This School caters for more than 200 children all of whom have TB or are HIV+. Most live locally but there is some accommodation. The school provides a daily feeding program of hot meals. They did have an existing library which we restocked and was the only school to have toys and even playground equipment.

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The Olives Rehabilitation Centre

The Olives Centre is based in Bombolulu it's Mombasa's biggest slum with over 100'000 destitute inhabitants. The School caters for more than 200 orphans from the slum. All the pupils a given a hot meal each day and extra vitamins and are de-wormed regularly.There was no library at the school.

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Ufoni Primary School

The most remote of the schools we visited its some 40 miles to the north of Mombasa deep in the bush.With some 400 pupils its a day school with about 8 teachers and an active community involvement. The borehole and water pump is within the school but villagers have access to water.

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Where Next?

We are constantly picking packing and shipping our standard 40 book packages and this happens on a weekly basis. We sent a container to Nepal and there was a team out there in October to oversee distribution.We sent a container to Zanzibar in the summer and after being reported missing by the shipping company turned up in November. Again we sent someone out to oversee distribution.

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Where Next

In December we finished packing 18 pallets bound for Rwanda which is a bit of a trial run for one of next years major project. In November, the commissioner of Rwanda visited us at Rhynie to ask for our help as they change from French being their first language to it being English.

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Despatch Plan for 2012

8.5 kilo parcels Africa 7,239 kilos to 108 Clients Asia 1,258 kilos to 18 Clients Eastern Europe 408 kilos to 6 Clients South/Central America 119 kilos to 2 Clients Indian Ocean 68 kilos to 1 Client Grenada 170 kilos to 3 Clients Papua New Guinea 136 kilos to 2 Clients

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Despatch Plan for 2012

Special Projects Africa 10,000 kilos as yet not confirmed India 10,000 kilos Rotary Schools Project Miscellaneous Small Projects 6,500 kilos All dependant on funding. In the last audited accounts for 2010, we needed £48,000 for direct costs (despatches etc.) and a further £33,000 for support costs (salaries etc.)

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Funding

Books Abroad receives no Government funding and depends entirely on monies raised locally.

We apply to Trust Funds and when successful receive money from them.We sell some of the books donated which are not suitable for sending abroad, mainly adult fiction and the like and we sell these from our unit in Rhynie and attend many fairs, car boot sales, gatherings and annually have a shop in Huntly just before Christmas for a week or so.

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Books Abroad

Raymond Edwards