News FAVL friend Steve Cisler passed away May 15. Family and friends wishing to make donations to a memorial library in Burkina Faso may donate here using Paypal:

If you are a San Francisco Bay Area resident, please come by to see the FAVL sponsored photo exhibit at Martin Luther King Library, downtown San Jose, through June 20, 2008. Details are here.

About FAVL
Friends of African Village Libraries is a network of individuals and donors committed to long-term management of and support for small community libraries in rural Africa. If you have been supporting a village library or community library, and would like to join our network, please contact us. If you are thinking of starting a community library, please read our current policy regarding how we help community libraries. Our funding is currently limited to operating and managing libraries within our network. Basically, we look for donors willing to enable long-term relationships with community libraries, rather than look for communities needing long-term support. Burkina Faso alone has thousands of villages with primary schools and no libraries; the needs are immense, the means to address the need are limited. To learn more about our operations, please read our newsletters: May 2008, September 2007, December 2006, and December 2005. Our publicity brochure is available for download here.

How does FAVL work?
Village libraries are established if a donor is willing to make a long-term commitment to support a library. Communities in our program area establish a local management committee and provide a building or a building site for the library. FAVL will then help the village to refurbish an existing building, or build a new building if funds permit, help to hire a librarian and purchase books. Village libraries typically hold a collection of one or two thousand books. The books are in English, French, Arabic, and local languages. The typical library has a reading room with office for the librarian. FAVL also helps train library staff to implement reading programs. A special concern is to develop counterpart leadership in the countries and the villages in which we establish libraries. FAVL either partners with existing non-profit organizations or assists in the creation of local non-profit organizations, recognized by the government, that oversee day-to-day library operations. In Uganda, for example, FAVL has helped create the Uganda Community Libraries Association (UgCLA). In northern Ghana, FAVL works with the Center for Sustainable Rural Development (CESRUD). FAVL conducts regular monitoring to minimize the risk of misappropriation and waste. FAVL requires monthly financial reports prepared by a local library oversight committee and conducts annual audits of library accounts and operations. Libraries and books belong to the village collectivity where the library is located. FAVL's commitment to help manage the library and ensure continued progress in expanding book collections, reading programs, cultural activities and other library operations is for the long-term.

Where does FAVL operate?
Generous donors have helped to establish and enable continued management and improvement of ten libraries, five in Burkina Faso, three in Ghana, one in Tanzania, and one in Uganda. For the time being, lack of funding and management capacity prevents us from extending our services to other countries. If you are a donor committed to assisting a village library or network of village libraries in other countries in Africa, please contact us.

See a short video about FAVL in Ghana