Eric Tang traveled to Africa to build a library in a Zambian
refugee camp after his 2004 graduation from UCLA.
“It’s mutually empowering,” he said,
“not just for the refugee, but for the college student as
well.”
This year, a book donation drive will be held at UCLA from
finals week throughout spring quarter to provide money for refugee
relief and education programs.
Tang, a participant in the group Facilitating Opportunities for
Refugee Growth, ended up establishing the largest library in any
refugee camp in the world ““ about 25,000 books. With the
group’s help, refugee students cleared out an unoccupied
warehouse, painted several murals and created their own cataloguing
system that reflected the unique curriculum taught in African
schools.
Tang’s trip was financed with the help of friends, family
and a book he self-published, but this year’s wave of UCLA
humanitarians to Africa are using a different method to raise
money: book donations.
“We want to bring these books out of people’s
closets that are just collecting dust,” said Erica Mackey, a
fourth-year organismic biology, ecology and evolution student, who
is working with Students for International Change, a nonprofit
nongovernmental organization working to limit the impact of HIV in
northern Tanzania, an area with an HIV rate of 20 percent.
Mackey’s roommate and fellow SIC member, Audrey
Desiderato, a fourth-year political science and economics student,
said “there are so many used books people don’t know
what to do with.” Mackey and Desiderato will be traveling to
Tanzania this summer, and hope to test 10,000 people for HIV with
SIC’s mobile testing unit. At $3 a test, the number of
Tanzanians tested will hinge heavily on the success of this UCLA
book drive.
Diana Essex, a second-year international development studies
student, has partnered with the SIC members to raise money for her
own FORGE microproject this summer. She plans to establish a
community center based around art and music. “My idea is to
feed the soul, even when you have trouble feeding the mouth,”
she said.
Working with Better World Books, United Parcel Service and Beta
Theta Pi, UCLA students Mackey, Desiderato and Essex have launched
the book donation program for finals week of winter quarter, and
intend to have it go on through spring quarter.
Book bins will be placed at book buy-back centers at Ackerman
Union, residential halls and in front of Beta Theta Pi on the
corner of Strathmore and Gayley avenues. The bins will be staffed
by volunteers to inform book donors about their
organization’s mission. UPS has agreed to ship the donated
books from UCLA to Better World Books, which will give $1 per book
donated toward the SIC and FORGE missions. Better World Books said
books that aren’t suitable for shipping to African libraries
and schools will be sold online in the U.S. and the proceeds
donated to African causes.
Fritz Gheen, Director of the Pacific Region for Better World
Books, said since his organization’s inception several years
ago, it has shipped approximately 200,000 books to Africa.
As a nonprofit organization, Gheen said, “We don’t
make a financial profit, we make a social profit.” In the
process, he said, “We empower students on campus, taking
books off campus that are going to be thrown away, saving them from
the landfill, and ultimately helping students in Africa.”