Dear Editor,
RE: INTRODUCTION TO MILLION BOOKS TO THE GAMBIA PROJECT (MBG)
I am grateful for space, in our continued efforts to network with Gambians and friends of the Gambia for the Million Books to the Gambia (MBG) project, which your readership will hopefully find important and join effort, in order to help bring awareness and participation to the project .
My name is Lamin M. Dibba (Lang or Goalkeeper Lang), originally from Farafenni in the North Bank Division of The Gambia and a resident of Minnesota, in the U.S. I am the Project Manager of the MBG project, which is a collaboration of Books for Africa and Hand in Health, both nonprofit organizations based in Minneapolis/St Paul, Minnesota. Our underlying goal is to increase the literacy rate in The Gambia. We target to send one million books (depending on funding and resource availability) by the end of the project, and have so far sent nearly 500,000 books to various academic institutions, hospitals and libraries in The Gambia. An additional 66,000 is scheduled to depart for The Gambia within the next four weeks.
Furthermore, we are just about to launch our second phase of the MBG project, which is to build Computer Literacy Centers (CLC), depending again, on funding and resources availability. Two schools have already been identified to be the first beneficiaries of the CLC project, based on their strategic locations (one urban, one upcountry), size, future sustainability and academic impact within the country. The attached press release is intended to introduce to you and other stakeholders our representatives tasked with coordinating the CLC phase of the MBG project.
It is a given that simply sending a million books, needed and relevant as they may be and or building libraries /and CLCs would not be sufficient to attain academic transformation in our beloved country. A dynamic network of stakeholders in collaboration with community leaders and volunteers to help identify innovative sustainability approaches is therefore necessary.
As a great medium of the fourth estate, development and enlightenment starts with you, and you are instrumental in reaching out to a great part of our target audience. We further believe that your partnership in this endeavor would efficiently complement our effort to attract like-minded individuals willing to volunteer their time and resources, in order to help our team better execute the plan for our work, re-create or re-aligned guidelines and shape our mission to best suit the intended purpose for this noble crusade. Additionally, it would enhance our collective ability to impact education and hopefully, healthcare in The Gambia in a positive and impressive manner.
On behalf of myself and the whole MBG team, I thank you profusely for giving us the opportunity to reach out to your audience. Ilook forward to working closely with you and others on this important voluntary endeavor. Anyone interested in participating, can please contact me directly on Telephone 612 990 6196, or via email [email protected].
Most Sincerely,
Lamin M. Dibba – Lang
Project Manager
Million Books to the Gambia (MBG) Project
2013 Service Award Recipient – MN Governor’s Commission
on the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday 2013
The below links to articles and videos would give you a synopsis of our work in The Gambia:
Launching the Project- Feb 2012 – in the Gambia
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dvamq99OiE
Our Project – Media Coverage
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/patrick-plonski/books-for-africa-gambia_b_2040978.html
Fund Raising Event – summer 2012 http://legalcurrent.com/2012/12/06/can-you-imagine-a-life-without-books/
Three-day Book Walk for Africa to kick off at university library University of Wisconsin – Stout www.uwstout.edu/news/UW-Stout-News-Story.cfm?…2198..
Donations can be made at: http://www.razoo.com/story/1-Million- search Lamin M. Dibba (Lang)