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Newsletter #63 - March 2016
Click here for PDF version |
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The Lubuto model embraced in Zambia’s development agenda |
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From the beginning, Lubuto forged a different path from other development organizations and libraries with its unique focus on genuine impact, sustainability and building African capacity to serve all young people through public library services. The safe spaces and enriching, educational opportunities offered through Lubuto libraries have proven to be essential to the daily lives of Zambia’s children who have experienced them. Our aim has been that the Zambian government and other key stakeholders understand and support the contribution that these high-quality open-access libraries for children make toward national development plans and securing a brighter future for their children.
Less than two years ago, Zambia’s education ministry outlined in a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) how we will work with the Zambia Library Service to provide highly impactful library services to young people in each of Zambia’s provinces. This month, acting on the MOU’s mandate, Government directed us to provide an outline of qualifications and positions needed for a new children/youth librarian career stream to be established in Zambia’s civil service.
This new government career track is a tangible sign of Zambian society and its communities taking ownership of the Lubuto model, making Lubuto Libraries more sustainable and essentially establishing the field of children’s and youth librarianship in Zambia, creating change and opportunities nationwide. We are excited to see the transformation that all these new children’s librarians and libraries will have on young people across Zambia!
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| Achieving Advocacy Goals supported by OSISA and Comic Relief |
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This accomplishment was made possible by generous support from Comic Relief and the Open Society Initiative of Southern Africa (OSISA) who recently fully approved support for the final year of our three-year jointly-funded project, “Improving Access to Quality Education in Zambia through the Lubuto Library Model.” That Government has responded so tangibly to our advocacy efforts in year two has infused our agenda for year three with more energy and ideas than ever, especially for our capacity-building plans. This project has helped Lubuto to play a leading role in our profession’s worldwide strategic plan to put libraries on the agenda of international development, and to promote libraries as partners for reaching the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals. We are deeply grateful for the support of Comic Relief and OSISA and hope that direct partnerships with both for the Lubuto model’s contributions to creating open societies that recognize the rights of all children will continue in the future.
Lubuto has also received several grants from the U.S. Agency for International Development recognizing Lubuto libraries and innovations as playing a key role in educational development, and we are making a strong case for impact in other development sectors as well. But the most important evidence of our impact is the number of young lives touched and changed by Lubuto Libraries: over 80,000 children have visited Lubuto Libraries over three quarters of a million times, reach that will grow exponentially as each new library opens.
The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) has adopted as its overarching goal putting libraries on the international development agenda, both of international organizations and national governments. Lubuto’s exemplary contributions to that end will be shared again by Jane Meyers at this August’s annual IFLA conference, where she will present a paper to the Africa Section on “Dynamic Partnerships for Sustainable Development of Public Libraries for Young People in Zambia” and a poster presentation, “Addressing SDGs and library relevance by serving the majority: introducing innovative child/youth public library services in Zambia.”
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| Seeking a Development Director |
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We are now recruiting an experienced Director of Development for our DC office. A successful candidate will have a solid background in grant writing and must be familiar with USAID and other internationally-focused funding organizations. Click here for more details.
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Volunteer of the Month
Our Volunteer of the Month is Musonda Kabamba who has been extremely helpful in keeping day-to-day operations running at Fountain of Hope Library. Musonda assists with our data collection, maintains and repairs computers and helps to shelve books.
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Copyright © 2016 Lubuto Library Partners, Inc.
The Lubuto Library Project is exempt from U.S. Federal income tax as a public charity
under Section 501(C) (3) of the Internal Revenue Code. |
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Lubuto Library Partners
5614 Connecticut Ave. NW, #368
Washington, DC 20015-2604
US
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